Former Vice President Joe Biden returned Wednesday to Washington, D.C. to join Democrats in celebrating the seventh anniversary of the signing of the Affordable Care Act—and advocate against its replacement.
“Let me cut to the chase. There’s nothing fundamentally changed in the Republican Party in the last 12 to 15 years except they have a President now who is a little more colorful,” Biden told a crowd assembled at the Capitol steps.
“It’s about a transfer tax basically,” he said later, referring to the tax breaks included in Republicans’ plan to replace Obamacare. Biden noted the American Health Care Act Would repeal Obamacare’s 0.9 payroll tax on those with incomes over $200,000, or $250,000 for couples filing jointly, that goes toward funding Medicare. He also emphasized that it would do away with taxes on medical device manufacturers, pharmaceutical companies and insurance company executives.
“It’s a transfer of about a trillion dollars from those folks out there to everybody in this country,” he said, gesturing toward the crowd. “That’s what it is. And that’s classic Republican politics.”
House Republican leaders have run up against both conservative and moderate opposition to the bill since its March 6 debut. House Rules Committee Chair Pete Sessions (R-TX), whose committee will vote on the bill before it arrives for a vote on the House floor, said Wednesday that “at the very top there’s a lack of understanding of how to sell this bill.”
“It could be this bill runs into problems as we get on the floor,” he said.
Biden opened his remarks Wednesday by saying that the Affordable Care Act had achieved its goal: “For Americans to finally, finally, finally be able to lie there and know that if, God forbid, something happens, as it’s happened to an awful lot of us, that I’m not going to lose my house, I’m not going to lose everything, I’m not going to leave my family in distress.”
Once House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) thanked Biden for his remarks, he leaned into the microphone again and said: “I ain’t going anywhere, this is not going to pass!”
