Rep. Steve King (R-IA) criticized the plan favored by House Republican leadership to replace Obamacare, saying Thursday that “we should have had more time to digest it.”
King, a conservative Trump ally, shared with CNN’s Chris Cuomo concerns now voiced by many in his position: that the American Health Care Act is moving too quickly.
Cuomo started by asking King about a statement from Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR), who said Tuesday morning that House leadership should “pause, start over. Get it right, don’t get it fast.”
“I hear what he has to say,” King said, referring to Cotton, “and I think it’s got merit to consider this, but also the White House and the leadership has had a discussion about how they want the timing of this to work and so they rolled this bill out, and we should have had more time to digest it. I’d have rather seen it out there for a week or 10 days before they go to committee to mark it up.”
“It really isn’t much time for anybody to bring amendments to try to make a change and we don’t get amendments passed unless we get public support for that, and it takes time for the organizations from outside to weigh in. I’d just like to see more time,” he continued, adding later: “If nothing gets done here in this Congress, we are stuck with Obamacare for a cycle or more.”
On Tuesday, White House press secretary Sean Spicer said of the health care bill: “We’re not jamming this down anybody’s throat.”
The first of two separate parts of the Republicans’ proposal cleared the House Ways and Means Committee on party lines, after 16 hours of debate, after 4 a.m. ET on Thursday.
Watch below via CNN:
Republican @SteveKingIA on speed of #Obamacarerepeal bill: “We should have had more time to digest it” https://t.co/MtEO8Bcont
— New Day (@NewDay) March 9, 2017
