On Sunday, appearing on ABC’s This Week, Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price made it clear that the Trump Administration won’t go whole hog on repealing Obamacare, asserting that it won’t be repealed without instituting Trumpcare.
Since Trumpcare is essentially a watered-down version of Obamacare, that piece of news won’t sit well with those who want to get rid of Obamacare in toto.
This Week host George Stephanopoulos said to Price, “Democrats don’t seem very willing right now. Senator Rand Paul is coming right up. He says you should just do a clean repeal like you did in 2015 and then have a wide-open debate on how to replace Obamacare. What’s wrong with that proposal?”
Price answered:
Because that – what that does is place vulnerable people at risk, and that’s not something that the president’s willing to do, it’s not something that he said he would do. Certainly what he has said is that repeal and replace need to occur essentially at the same time, concurrently, and that’s what we’re going – that’s what we’re moving forward within this first phase.
Price constantly backtracked from totally getting rid of Obamacare in the interview, protesting that Trumpcare would not leave Americans uninsured:
It makes it so that every single American will have the financial feasibility to gain access to the kind of coverage that they want for themselves and for their family, not the government forces them to buy. So, it’s an important part. It’s a first step in this process … And that may be the case, and that’s why, as it works through this legislative process, we’re looking at it and working with our legislative colleagues, to make certain that we’ve got the kind of plan that actually works for people in the real world. Something that the previous administration didn’t do.
Members of the House Freedom Caucus want a total repeal of Obamacare, and are critical of the bill introduced by House Speaker Paul Ryan, who tried to put the best face on the current bill, saying in early March, “If we just repeal Obamacare, it’s not like life in the world goes back to life before Obamacare. Obamacare did so much damage to the U.S. health insurance system that it’s not as if you can go back to the day before.”