Americans for Limited Government President Rick Manning says that Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price is wrong to say that a full Obamacare repeal would put “vulnerable people at risk.”
Tom Price argued Sunday that a clean repeal of Obamacare would put “vulnerable people at risk.” He explained, “What that does is place vulnerable people at risk, and that’s not something that the president’s willing to do, it’s not something that he said he would do.”
Manning released a statement opposing Speaker Ryan’s partial repeal of Obamacare bill, also known as “RyanCare.” Manning argued that the bill will likely not survive conservative opposition in Congress. He said in the statement:
Given the current impasse, Americans for Limited Government urges the House to scrap the current proposal and to keep their word and pass a repeal bill that respects the states and voters who elected a GOP majority, ensuring that the people are not forced into costly federal government mandated health plans. Then, the Senate will be free to pass that, or modify it.
Breitbart News spoke with Manning about his thoughts on Speaker Ryan’s American Health Care Act. Manning explained that Speaker Ryan’s Obamacare-lite bill does not fully repeal Obamacare. He said:
The people would still have to purchase Obamacare’s bronze, silver, gold, and platinum plans. It doesn’t repeal the Cadillac tax and the individual mandate for individuals to purchase health insurance. It leaves most of Obamacare in place. It retains many of Obamacare’s regulations. A future Democrat administration can just restore Obamacare with a slightly different premise, meaning that we’ve effectively accomplished nothing.
Breitbart News asked Manning if Secretary Price was wrong to say that a full repeal would put vulnerable people at risk. Manning remarked, “Tom Price voted for a full repeal in 2015, and he voted for a full repeal on multiple occasions. He is either wrong then or wrong now. I suspect that he’s wrong now.”
The Congressional Budget Office’s analysis claims that the Ryan bill to partially repeal Obamacare would insure fewer people than a full repeal. Manning thinks that a full repeal would is far better than partial repeal and that Republicans need a comprehensive free market reform of health care beyond Obamacare. He said:
We need to do a full repeal and then replace and create a system that allows for across state lines, and expand HSAs, or Health Savings Accounts. Moreover, then we need to block grant Medicaid to the states. This way we can have a system that is flexible for the states, not the one size fits all federal system that we have now.
Breitbart News asked the Americans for Limited Government president what would happen if the Republicans end up passing the RyanCare bill. Manning said, “I think that Republicans will lose the House, and the truth is it would be devastating for Trump’s brand. I believe that all of the problems with RyanCare would be thrown on Trump’s back.”
Manning says he believes an avenue already exists to repeal Obamacare fully.
“The argument is that we can only fully repeal Obamacare once we have 60 votes in the Senate, but that’s not true. All they need to do is rebuke the Senate parliamentarian with a 51 person majority, establish that a full repeal can be placed into reconciliation. Republicans have never had enough votes to override the filibuster. There will always be an excuse for why we can’t move forward with the conservative option. They’re not willing to do what is right. Let’s get this right. It’s too important to fail,” Manning concluded.