Obama Doesn’t Want To Make Life Easy For Republicans Over Obamacare
Vice President-elect Mike Pence has already made it clear—Obamacare has to go. Pence recently held a press conference saying that President-elect Donald Trump is going to repeal Obamacare on his first day of office through an executive order. However, there are many Republicans who are concerned and have given some concerning thoughts on repealing the Affordable Healthcare Act.
The main concern is that there is no plan in place to replace Obamacare, which would leave millions without health insurance. It’s something that is a bit shocking considering the Republican Party had nearly seven years to come up with an alternative to the controversial healthcare bill.
“The first order of business is to repeal and replace Obamacare, and that was our message today and that will be our message on Capitol Hill,” Pence told reporters. “It will be important that we be careful that … we do that in a way that doesn’t work a hardship on American families that have gained insurance through this program. That it doesn’t work a hardship on this economy.”
As mentioned before, the Republicans don’t have a clear replacement plan and they made mention of that fact to reporters after Pence took to Capitol Hill to reaffirm the GOP’s plan to dismantle Obamacare.
“We have 6 months to work out a plan for Obamacare,” Rep. Chris Collins said. “We don’t have a plan today.”
Not having a plan isn’t the only issues that the GOP will face when it comes to Obamacare. President Barack Obama was also at Capitol Hill to rally the Democrats. His message was quite simple—don’t bail the GOP out. Obama held a closed door meeting with the Democrats and told them “don’t rescue GOP on Trumpcare.” Obama also admitted that he could have done a better job of promoting the positives of the law during his time in office.
“He said, ‘I could have done a better job,’” Rep. Luis Gutierrez of Illinois told RealClearPolitics after the meeting. “‘It’s complicated, I could have done a better job.’ It’s one area that I think he could have taken more responsibility.”
Obama isn’t the only one the Republicans will have to worry about as Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer is also going to help make sure the fallout doesn’t fall at the feet of the Democratic Party. Schumer has made it clear that the Democrats aren’t going to compromise their convictions when it comes to Trump’s policies.
“The only way we’re going to work with him is if he moves completely in our direction and abandons his Republican colleagues,” Schumer said to CNN. “My views are exactly the same as Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders. Both of them have said — both of them have said the same exact thing: If we can work with him and be true to our principles, we’re not going to reject it. But overall, we’re sticking to our principles. We’re not compromising for its own sake.”
