WASHINGTON – Growing numbers of Republicans showed discomfort Monday over obliterating President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul without having a replacement to show voters. Hoping to capitalize on the jitters, Democrats staged an evening Senate talk-a-thon to condemn the GOP push.
With Donald Trump just 12 days from entering the White House, Republicans have positioned a repeal and replacement of Obama’s 2010 health care statute atop their congressional agenda. But GOP lawmakers have never been able to rally behind an alternative, and Republican senators are increasingly voicing reluctance to vote to yank health coverage from millions of people without a substitute.
That hesitancy was fed as Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., among those who want to delay repeal until a substitute is ready, said Trump telephoned him Friday night and expressed support for doing both together. The president-elect expressed a similar sentiment shortly after his election, but his call to Paul came as GOP congressional leaders have pushed toward an early repeal vote, to be followed by work on alternative health care legislation that could take months or years to craft.
“There are gathering voices of people saying, ‘Hmm, maybe we should have a replacement the same day as a repeal,'” Paul told reporters Monday.
Highlighting GOP indecision, Steve Bannon, who will be White House senior adviser, said, “We’re still thinking that through” when asked by reporters after a meeting in the Capitol if repeal and replace should happen together.