Exclusive–Rep. Brian Babin: The American People Need to Be Rescued from Obamacare

Rep. Brian Babin (R.-Texas) told Breitbart News he is voting to repeal President Barack Obama’s healthcare reform legislation because of the damage it has done to regular Americans and their access to affordable medical services.

“The American people need to be rescued,” said the former Army and Air Force dentist now serving as a congressman, who started campaigning against the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act in 2013, when he launched his run for the House seat he won in 2014. “It is a terrible law.”

Babin said he was happy the Senate already voted for the first steps in Obamacare repeal and that he understood the limitations of using the budget reconciliation process.

The House action began Friday with consideration of the bill the Senate passed 51-to-48 — with Sen. Rand Paul (R.-Ky.) being the only Republican voting with Democrats, because he has pledged to only vote to repeal if there is a companion replacement bill. At 1:15 a.m. Thursday morning, shortly before the vote closed, Sen. Jeff B. Sessions III (R.-Ala.) surprised colleagues on the floor, most of whom had left after casting their vote, when he showed up to vote for the repeal bill.

Republicans do not have the 60 votes to end debate on a straight-on repeal of Obamacare, so they are using the budget reconciliation process, which has a fixed 50 hours of debate, so there is no way for a minority to prolong debate.

As a “budget,” the bill carries over the general budget numbers that had been approved through September.

Babin told Breitbart News that as a conservative, he was not happy with the budget part of the budget resolution.

But this resolution is just the vehicle Republicans have to use to get something through the Senate; otherwise, nothing gets done, he said.

“The American people need to be able to choose the doctor and the policy they want–give them opportunities and options,” he said.

“We got thousands of people–thousands of families and individuals–who have policies with premiums they can’t afford, with deductibles so high they can’t use them,” he said. “These premiums are the size of a home mortgage–they could be buying a home, but instead they are paying for their coverage.”

The congressman said a typical example is one family of five in his district, a wife, husband, and three children:

Their first Obamacare policy was $900-per-month with a $3,500 deductible,” he said. “One year later? $1,100-per-month with a $5,000 deductible–they kept getting the deductible higher, so they wouldn’t have to pay as much on their premiums. Then, they lost their provider and they had to go into an HMO. The HMO was $1,000-per-month–a family of five–$6,600 deductible–individually–$12,000-a-year in premiums and $33,000-a-year in deductibles.

“I know this family very, very well because it is my daughter, my son-in-law, and my grandchildren,” he said.