Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) said Monday that his fellow Republicans are justified in their efforts to defund or delay the Affordable Care Act, regardless of what critics like Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) contend.
After Chaffetz argued that House Republicans have sufficiently compromised by shifting to a one-year delay of the health care law, MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell pointed out that McCain has been highly critical of the gambit.
“I don’t care what John McCain thinks,” Chaffetz said. “Andrea, I don’t care what John McCain thinks.”
McCain has spoken out forcefully against the defunding effort led by some members of his party. The Arizona Republican said earlier this month that it is “not rational” to believe that the law will be repealed or defunded. Following Sen. Ted Cruz’s (R-TX) 21-hour talkathon last week to protest funding for the Affordable Care Act, McCain took to the Senate floor to argue that the law was litigated in last year’s election.
“That doesn’t mean that we give up our efforts to try to replace and repair Obamacare, but it does mean that elections have consequences,” McCain said. “Those elections were clear in a significant majority that a majority of the American people supported the president of the United States and renewed his stewardship of this country.”
But Chaffetz told Mitchell that his party’s triumph in the 2010 midterms gave Republicans the green light to gut the health care law.
“The election of 2010 had a sweeping change. Republicans came sweeping in to take control of the house,” he said. “I, too, won an election. Do you want me to just disregard all of my voters and all the promises that i made and how I got elected? There were lots of people that were elected, particularly in 2010, on this issue and to just say, ‘Well, you should forget about that because of President Obama’s election.’ We can’t do that.”
