GOP Rep. Says Obamacare Repeal Bill ‘Is Definitely In Serious Trouble’

UNITED STATES - SEPTEMBER 7: Rep. Mo Brooks, R-Ala., speaks with reporters as he leaves the House Republican Conference meeting in the Capitol on Wednesday morning, Sept. 7, 2016. (Photo By Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call) (... UNITED STATES - SEPTEMBER 7: Rep. Mo Brooks, R-Ala., speaks with reporters as he leaves the House Republican Conference meeting in the Capitol on Wednesday morning, Sept. 7, 2016. (Photo By Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call) (CQ Roll Call via AP Images) MORE LESS
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Rep. Mo Brooks (R-AL) said on Tuesday that House Republicans’ bill to repeal Obamacare is “not good” and “is definitely in serious trouble.”

“Let’s be clear about something. The fact that the Republican welfare program is not as bad as Obamacare does not mean that it’s good. It is not good,” Brooks said on CNN.

He said that the bill will still increase deficits in the long run “compared to there being no Republican welfare plan, compared to there being no Obamacare.”

“This legislation is definitely in serious trouble,” Brooks said. “The primary impetus for the trouble in my opinion, aside from it being the largest welfare plan proposed by the Republicans in the Republican Party’s history, is that we just had two reports come out in January.”

He cited January reports from the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office and the U.S. Government Accountability Office warning of “future insolvency” as a result of accumulated “deficits and debt.”

“That’s steering us down the road where we’re going to suffer debilitating insolvency and bankruptcy wherein the primary impetuses for these deficits and debt are the 87 welfare programs that cost us over $800 billion a year,” Brooks said. “Now you’re going to add another one on top of it that worsens our financial condition.”

In a report released Monday, the CBO estimated that 24 million people would lose their insurance over the next 10 years under House Republicans’ repeal bill. The CBO also estimated that the bill would save the government $6 billion dollars and reduce the federal deficit by $337 billion dollars over the next 10 years.

Brooks said in February that some of his Republican colleagues in Congress might no longer have the “spine” to fully repeal Obamacare after facing pressure from constituents at town halls during the congressional recess.

“Right now, in my judgment, we don’t have the votes in Congress to pass a repeal bill,” he said at the time. “Quite frankly, I don’t know that this administration supports a full repeal.”

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