NARAL, a major advocacy group for abortion rights and contraceptive access, warned Democrats against supporting a GOP Obamacare replacement plan if Republicans repeal Obamacare, arguing that Republicans are unlikely to offer “a meaningful plan to ‘replace’ this historic expansion of Americans’ health care.”
“Democrats should not learn the wrong lessons from 2016. If they do, they will be without our support in 2018,” NARAL Pro-Choice America President Ilyse Hogue said in a statement Thursday.
The statement came after a Thursday Politico report suggesting that many Senate Democrats had expressed a willingness to help Republicans replace Obamacare. Some of the same Democratic lawmakers told TPM earlier this month that they would be open to fixing Obamacare, but many objected to the idea of repealing the law without any clear replacement ideas first.
Republicans have signaled their intention to repeal Obamacare through a process known as reconciliation, which requires only a simple majority vote in the Senate and thus avoids a Democratic filibuster. GOP lawmakers have acknowledged that some of the provisions they would like to pass to replace would still require 60 votes and they’ve said they hoped to get Democrats on board.
In the six years since Obamacare passed, a few GOP replacement plans have been proposed, but none have gained the consensus of the Republican caucus, meaning it’s still very unclear what an alternative will look like or when even lawmakers will settle on one. But by floating a repeal model that would dismantle major ACA taxes right away — and thus, shut off a key revenue source for an alternative — it appears Republicans would be willing to settle for a replacement much more meager than Obamacare.
“Democrats should not play this game with them. Democrats fought hard to pass the law, and now millions of Americans are benefiting from those efforts,” the NARAL statement said.