Pence rallies GOP to kill Obamacare; Obama plots defense
WASHINGTON — Donald Trump and Republican congressional leaders continued to insist Wednesday that their plan to dismantle Obamacare remains on a fast track with Trump poised to act on his first day in office in a little more than two weeks.
But after Vice President-elect Mike Pence met Wednesday with GOP congressional leaders to plot the demise of the Affordable Care Act, he and House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., offered few details about their plan of attack.
And even Trump offered some cautionary political advice to his own party to make sure Democrats retain blame for the problems with the law.
The GOP-controlled Senate, meanwhile, voted 51-48 Wednesday to move ahead with debate on a budget resolution for fiscal year 2017 that would include instructions for repealing the 2010 law. Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul was the only Republican to vote no.
The Senate was expected to debate the resolution into next week with the goal of approving it by Jan. 20, Trump’s inauguration day.
While Pence was meeting with GOP leaders at one end of the Capitol, President Obama huddled with congressional Democrats at the other end to plot how to protect his signature legislative achievement.
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The two camps disagreed on the extent of the coming changes, but they both focused on what might come next — and on political blame.
“Now Republicans in Congress are like the dog who caught the bus,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said after meeting with Obama. “They can repeal, but they have nothing to put in its place."
Republican leaders insisted they have a plan to replace Obamacare but gave no details Wednesday.
“We have plenty of ideas to replace it,” Ryan said after meeting with Pence.
Instead of detailing those ideas, which Ryan said would come in the “weeks and months ahead,” Republicans criticized Obama for “ruining” the health care system.
And Trump tried to make sure any public dissatisfaction with the health care system is attached to Democrats.
“Republicans must be careful in that the Dems own the failed Obamacare disaster, with its poor coverage and massive premium increases,” Trump tweeted Wednesday morning.
Pence said he stressed to Republicans in their closed-door session the importance of “reminding people” of Obama’s broken promises on health care.
“(Trump) admonished the Congress to be careful and I reiterated that. We’re talking about people’s lives,” Pence said. “But we’re also talking about a policy that has been a failure virtually since its inception. We intend to, over the course of the coming days and weeks, to be speaking directly to the American people about that failure.”
“As (Trump) said this morning in a tweet, it will be important that we … do that in a way that doesn’t work a hardship on American families who have gained insurance through this program (and) doesn’t work a hardship on our economy,” Pence said.
A record number of Americans, 6.4 million, had signed up for health insurance through the 2017 Obamacare program as of mid-December, according to White House officials, about 400,000 more than the previous record by that time. Registration continues through Jan. 31. About 9 percent of Americans lack health insurance, less than half the rate before Obamacare took effect.
