Sen. Dan Coats (R-IN) summed up his appetite for fixing Obamacare if the Supreme Court invalidates the law’s crucial tax subsidies in more than 30 states later this year in one word: “No.”
Then he repeated it three more times.
“No, no, no, no,” Coats, who sits on the Senate Finance Committee, told the Wall Street Journal’s Louise Radnofky when asked about restoring tax credits in the states that use HealthCare.gov.
As TPM’s Sahil Kapur detailed Thursday, Republicans aren’t at all sure what they’ll do if the Supreme Court undermines the law in King v. Burwell. Working with Democrats isn’t considered viable, but they also haven’t coalesced around an alternative — despite Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s statements that a conservative victory in King would provide the opportunity for a “major do-over.”
At least some GOP staffers sound unnerved by their party’s unpreparedness.
“It’s an opportunity that we’ve failed at for two decades. We’ve not been particularly close to being on the same page on this subject for two decades,” a congressional Republican health policy aide told TPM. “So this idea — we’re ready to go? Actually no, we’re not.”
