Enough Republicans to crush the effort in the U.S. Senate announced on Monday evening they oppose any effort by congressional GOP leadership to only partially repeal Obamacare, scuttling House Speaker Paul Ryan’s plans to kick the can down the road again.
Sens. Rand Paul (R-KY), Ted Cruz (R-TX), and Mike Lee (R-UT) each Tweeted out that there should be a full repeal of Obamacare — nothing less.
Given the fact there are only 52 GOP senators, should the three of them band together against any legislative effort by Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to offer only a partial repeal, as they suggest they will, they would likely doom such an effort in the U.S. Senate. It is highly unlikely Democrats would support even partial repeal of the former president’s healthcare law.
“We expect a full repeal of Obamacare and will not accept anything less,” a Senate GOP aide familiar with the efforts by Paul, Cruz, and Lee said late Monday when reached by Breitbart News. “Anything less is dead on arrival.”
House Freedom Caucus chairman Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC) joined in on Twitter, saying he stands with them. Meadows leads a group of more than 40 hardline conservatives in the House, a bloc of votes that could also make the difference in that chamber.
Complicating matters further is the notion that President Donald Trump, in his exclusive interview with Breitbart News on Monday afternoon in the Oval Office, said an Obamacare repeal would need to come before broad tax cuts that Republicans party-wide generally support. Trump said that he was moving “very quickly” on an Obamacare repeal and replacement plan.
“Taxes will come after the healthcare, because from a budgetary standpoint it’s much cleaner and much better if you do that,” Trump said. “But we’re moving very well both on budgetary matters and on healthcare and on tax cuts. Tax cuts will be very substantial, for business and for people.”
All of these developments combined may force GOP leadership’s hand into backing the tougher line on healthcare — a full repeal of Obamacare. It remains to be seen what will happen next.
Obamacare is expected to be one of the major topics of the President’s address on Tuesday evening to a joint session of Congress, something the president confirmed in his Monday afternoon interview with Breitbart News. It was also a topic of discussion during the president’s Monday afternoon meeting with Ryan and McConnell, which occurred directly after his interview with Breitbart News in the Oval Office.