Cruz, Lee, 4 Additional Lawmakers Promise to Reject Obamacare Legislation That Doesn’t Repeal as Much as 2015 Bill

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, left, and Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, right, along with four other lawmakers, have drawn a hard line on Obamacare repeal. (Photo: Mike Theiler/UPI/Newscom)
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Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, left, and Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, right, along with four other lawmakers, have drawn a hard line on Obamacare repeal. (Photo: Mike Theiler/UPI/Newscom)

Six lawmakers have come out stating that they will not support any form of Obamacare legislation that does not repeal as much of Obamacare as previous legislation did, stating that the language of a 2015 bill passed by both chambers should be “the bare minimum.”

Others lawmakers who are calling for 2015 language to be the “bare minimum” for any Obamacare repeal legislation include Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky.; Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas; Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C.; Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio; and Rep. Mark Walker, R-N.C.

The 2015 reconciliation bill passed by Congress but vetoed by President Barack Obama includes repeal of key Obamacare provisions, including funding for Medicaid expansion and almost all of Obamacare’s tax increases, according to Alyene Senger, formerly a health care policy analyst at The Heritage Foundation.

The 2015 bill also repealed the individual and employer mandates, tax credits, and defunded Planned Parenthood.

The lawmakers say that they were elected to Congress to repeal and replace Obamacare, and that they should follow through on that mandate from their constituents.

“Congress must keep its word,” Paul said in a statement released Tuesday morning. “We were elected to fully repeal and replace Obamacare, and that’s the only thing I will vote for. The legislation brought to the Senate floor must at least match the standard set by the 2015 repeal bill that both chambers of Congress passed.”

Cruz joined his fellow senators:

“Right now, [Americans] may have insurance, but they can’t afford it,” Jordan said Tuesday morning in an interview with “Fox & Friends.”

“They can’t afford the deductibles, they can’t afford the premiums,” Jordan said, adding:

We are saying, ‘Let’s repeal it, let’s put the same legislation on President [Donald] Trump’s desk that we put on President Obama’s desk, and then let’s replace Obamacare with a patient-centered, family-centered, doctor-centered plan,’ not what we have currently, which is Washington in control.

Meadows said he supports the efforts of his colleagues for repeal, tweeting Monday that “every tax, every mandate, every regulation of #Obamacare needs to go.”

Walker, who also serves as the chair of the Republican Study Committee, said he would not support a draft of an Obamacare repeal bill leaked last week. He said it is simply another “entitlement with a Republican stamp on it.”

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“The bill contains what increasingly appears to be a new health insurance entitlement with a Republican stamp on it,” Walker said. “In that form and absent of substantial changes, I cannot vote for the bill, and, in good conscience, cannot recommend RSC members to vote for it either.”

Source material can be found at this site.

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