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Republicans just took the first step towards Obamacare repeal
This week, Senate and House Republicans took the first major step towards Obamacare repeal. On Friday, House Republicans narrowly advanced a budget blueprint that is intended to be the eventual legislative vehicle for gutting Obamacare. No Democrats joined the Republicans in voting yes.
The vast majority of Republicans voted with their party with the House voting 227-198 in support of the resolution and only nine Republicans voting against against it.
Now that Republicans in the House have passed the reconciliation instructions, the appropriate committees will write the bills to repeal Obamacare. Then those bills will go to their respective Budget Committees in both chambers. The two chambers would either pass the same bill or go to a conference committee to work out the differences in the two versions. And that legislation would then only require simple majorities in the House and Senate before going to the president for his signature – instead of the filibuster proof 60 votes that is traditionally required in the Senate.
Republicans still have no plan for how to replace Obamacare
Despite having about 7 years to work on their replacement, Republicans still have no plan for how to replace Obamacare. And a few Republican members of both the House and Senate are starting to realize that repealing Obamacare will hurt their constituents. Donald Trump has promised that Republicans will replace Obamacare “with something great” at the same time as they repeal it, however, there are no signs that Republicans have a plan.
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And some Republicans are very worried about the idea of repealing Obamacare without a plan for replacing it. One example is Susan Collins of Maine who said, “Many of us have concerns about repealing and delaying the decision on what a replacement would look like. That creates tremendous anxiety and uncertainty for those who are receiving insurance through the exchanges .”
Republican’s Obamacare repeal bill would add more than $9 trillion to U.S. debt
A little discussed aspect of the budget that Republicans just voted on is that it deems it “appropriate” for U.S. debt to rise by more than $9 trillion over the next decade. Republicans claiming that they won’t actually go along with debt increases but they just need to vote on it now for some reason.
And most of the Republicans who did vote against the budget resolution said they had concerns over endorsing that amount of new debt. While three moderates Republicans voted against the resolution because they wanted to show Republican leadership that their votes shouldn’t be taken for granted in an eventual repeal or replacement.
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