WASHINGTON — Senate Republican leaders wouldn’t commit Tuesday to having health care legislation ready by June to avert a potential crisis if the Supreme Court wipes out Obamacare subsidies for millions of Americans.
One day before Supreme Court was scheduled to hear oral arguments in King v. Burwell, TPM asked Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) at his weekly Capitol press conference if the GOP would have bill ready to mitigate the potential health care crisis.
The short answer: We’re working on it, but won’t commit to anything.
“Well, we won’t know what the Court is going to decide probably until June,” McConnell said, before turning the mic over to Senate Republican Policy Committee Chair John Barrasso (R-WY), his point person on health care.
Barrasso said, “We’re working on a temporary transition for people who may end up losing their insurance as the Supreme Court shows that the president has acted illegally. I don’t think anyone really clearly fully anticipated what the Supreme Court was going to do last time. So we have to see exactly what the Supreme Court rules.”
The justices will meet privately this Friday to cast their votes in the case, and a final ruling is expected by the end of June.
Barrasso said he hopes the Supreme Court rules for the challengers that the language of the Affordable Care Act only allows subsidies for those enrolled on state-run exchanges and not the federal exchange which serves about three-dozen states.
The Wyoming Republican, a doctor, pointed to various op-eds written by leading Republicans in the Wall Street Journal and Washington Post sketching out some ideas for a potential “fix” if Obamacare loses, such as protecting those who would lose their coverage and giving states flexibility to opt out of Obamacare.
The task of writing legislation, of course, is much more complicated than offering broad ideas. It would involve difficult trade-offs on policy matters and would be scored by the Congressional Budget Office for impacts on the uninsured and the budget. It is one reason Republicans have struggled to put forth an alternative in the five years since Obamacare was enacted.
It is very simple. Turn the financing of all health care to the federal government. Do away with the insurance companies. That would save the country mucho money, enough to rebuild our roads and bridges.
How about giving up insurance coverage for Congress? You know the coverage funded by the same people Congress is trying to strip them of health care.
Why wait until the SCOTUS rules. One would imagine that they should have something ready to roll for the worst/best case (your view) either way. If the Court is less likely to throw it out without a replacement than having a replacement should be ready to go.
It will not happen, but it is one of those things. The GOP only has half baked bullet points. No real system to speak of, the real shame is how low this has all stooped. Acting as if this was sprung on anybody and to be read as a bait and switch…that apparently was hidden from everyone until a year or so ago. Seems like an awfully important thing to hide if it iwas an enforcement mechanism. Remember the mandate…that was an enforcement mechanism and remember the uproar?
“MAY not”? They’re still talking about what a good idea it would be to have an alternative- five+ years after the ACA was passed.
Their best solution was the private alternative proposed by the Heritage Foundation in response to the to single-payer initiative Hillary Clinton worked on when she was First Lady.
You know, Obamacare.
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