Senate Majority Leader-elect Mitch McConnell (R-KY) told reporters on Tuesday that if the Supreme Court were to invalidate Obamacare subsidies on the federal exchange, it would lead to a “comprehensive revisitation” of health care reform in Congress.
At his Capitol press conference, McConnell sidestepped a question from TPM on whether he would be open to a legislative fix that explicitly authorizes Obamacare subsidies on the federal HealthCare.gov exchange, the part of the law being challenged at the Court.
If the Supreme Court axes federal exchange subsidies (which serve some 7 million Americans in 36 states), McConnell said “for sure Congress is back in the business of taking a look at health care in a comprehensive way.”
“It’s hard to predict what the appropriate response would be before we see what they rule. … If the Court were to rule the way they might, we could be in for a very large comprehensive revisitation of the whole issue.”
Earlier, McConnell told the Wall Street Journal in an interview published Tuesday that that the prospects of repealing Obamacare are “pretty limited” but “[w]ho may ultimately take it down is the Supreme Court of the United States.”
“If that were to be the case, I would assume that you could have a mulligan here, a major do-over of the whole thing — that opportunity presented to us by the Supreme Court, as opposed to actually getting the president to sign a full repeal, which is not likely to happen,” McConnell told the Journal.
Nearly five years after Obamacare was enacted, Republicans remain staunchly opposed to the law but they have yet to coalesce around a health care plan of their own.
The Supreme Court case is King v. Burwell. Oral arguments are expected early next year, with a decision by the end of June.
Yep, another in the long list of negative spin “This may turn out bad for Obama!” stories by Sahil Kapur. Knew it as soon as I saw the headline. I hope he is not proud of his constant shilling. He has really destroyed whatever credibility he ever thought he had as a reporter. Unless he wants to work at Fox News of course since he clearly thinks like them. (No Sahil, that is not a compliment.)
Ya because estates couldn’t open their own exchanges. What an idiot. The real slap in the face is that congress left a few words out of the several thousands of pages and some paper pusher filed a law suite. At no time in the last 6 years did any congressman or senator say that he wanted members to be ineligible for subsidies on the federal exchange . None no one mentioned in the news. It was not talk about. So in hind sight one person think they found a loophole.
[quote]“It’s hard to predict what the appropriate response would be before we see what they rule. … If the Court were to rule the way they might, we could be in for a very large comprehensive revisitation of the whole issue.”
…
“If that were to be the case, I would assume that you could have a mulligan here, a major do-over of the whole thing…”[/quote]
Why is it when I hear him say “comprehensive revisitation,” the gut feeling I get is that they will make a few superficial changes and then announce the resulting legislation as the Republican’s brand new alternative to Obamacare that fixes everything wrong with Healthcare in a blatant attempt to usurp credit and that the MSM will carry water for them throughout the entire spin process?
Republicans… a party that has devolved to a single item agenda… destroy anything the other party has done. They do not lead, they destroy.
A party that led would have a fully vetted replacement for the ACA before tearing down what is there.
I can see it now:
SCOTUS rules in the Republicans’ favor.
Rates go up for everyone.
Millions of Americans lose access to affordable insurance.
Republicans blame it on Obama and the Democrats, citing their inability to write a proper bill.
The public believes them, and Republicans sweep the 2016 elections.
On the downside, the insurance industry would be really ticked off at the GOP over this, but hey - they’ve still got Big Oil, Big Defense and Big Pharma. You can’t win them all.