Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) told an audience that Republicans are going to repeal Obamacare, but fully gutting the law and replacing it will take some time.
“You can’t just snap your fingers and go from where we are today to where we’re headed,” McConnell said Saturday, according to the Associated Press. “This has to be done carefully. It has to be done in a phased-in way over a period of time.”
When asked to give a specific timeline on when repeal would take place, McConnell said “we’re going to move to it after we go back in the first week in January.”
Republicans in Washington are still undecided about how to replace Obamacare. Despite the fact that the party has been running on a platform to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act for six years, there is still disagreement about how best to overhaul the law and ensure that the 20 million people benefiting from it are not kicked off insurance and left without health coverage. During his address, the Associated Press reported that McConnell criticized the law for rising premiums and called it a “monstrosity.”
“We have an obligation to the American people to straighten this out,” he said, according to the AP.
Republican senators seem content on the long-term strategy, but some House members were hoping that the issue would be handled more swiftly.
