As the Republican effort to “repeal and replace” Obamacare crumbles in Congress, Donald Trump and some of his GOP allies in Congress are toying with another idea: Just repeal the Affordable Care Act now, and replace it later.
MSNBC’s Joy Reid had a little reality check for the GOP as they move away from “repeal and replace” and put their hopes on a straight repeal of Obamacare without any replacement legislation.
Video:
Joy Reid with the ultimate reality check for Trump, Republicans who want to repeal Obamacare without a replacement #AMJoy pic.twitter.com/oeS0XjEzH1
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— Sean Colarossi (@SeanColarossi) July 1, 2017
The plan to repeal Obamacare and replace later may sound good to Republicans in Congress who are failing miserably with their current strategy, but Reid pointed a few keys reasons why the new idea would be even more difficult to achieve.
The MSNBC host said:
Republicans, 1, will likely need 60 votes to wholesale repeal the ACA – that’s 10 more votes than the 50 votes they haven’t been able to get for their proposed bill.
2. Just repealing the ACA would leave 33 million more people uninsured than under the current law. That’s even worse than the senate version of Trumpcare, which would leave 22 million more uninsured.
3. Repealing Obamacare without having a replacement ready would likely further destabilize the insurance markers and lead to even more insurers pulling out the exchanges.
4. Who actually believes Republicans would actually get around to the replace part?
On almost every level, as Reid said, the Republican effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act would be harder if they did it without a replacement plan on the table.
Not only would such a bill hurt millions more Americans and fail to win over those in the party that thought the first version of Trumpcare was too heartless, but no rational human being actually believes the GOP would actually come up with a replacement piece of legislation at some point down the road.
Meanwhile, the insurance market would be in chaos and millions of Americans would have no access to health insurance.
Sean Colarossi currently resides in Cleveland, Ohio. He earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in Journalism from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and was an organizing fellow for both of President Obama’s presidential campaigns. He also worked with Planned Parenthood as an Affordable Care Act Outreach Organizer in 2014, helping northeast Ohio residents obtain health insurance coverage.
