Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) told a crowd at Baptist Health Corbin, Ky. on Tuesday that shutting down the government won’t actually stop the implementation of Obamacare.
“I’m for stopping Obamacare, but shutting down the government will not stop Obamacare,” he said, according to Tanner Hestberg, a local reporter for CBS affiliate WYMT.
McConnell is right: As a recent Congressional Research Service report found, a government shutdown would not impact major portions of the law which will continue to receive implementation funding that the law provides outside the appropriations process.
The Republican leader is being attacked by his 2014 primary challenger, Matt Bevin, for not going after Obamacare forcefully enough. His remarks follow recent comments by House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) admitting that conservatives don’t have the votes to force a defunding of Obamacare in a bill to keep government open after Sept. 30.
McConnell also reportedly said Tuesday that the United States has the “greatest health care in the world, unless we (legislators) mess it up.”
