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You are here: Home / Health Care / Why Republicans Will Never Replace Obamacare
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Why Republicans Will Never Replace Obamacare

January 9, 2017 at 9:35 pm EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

I noted the possibility last week, but it seems increasingly likely the effort to repeal Obamacare is dead.

TPM reports that five GOP senators now want to delay the repeal vote until a replacement is agreed upon. That means if every Democrat holds firm against repeal, Republicans don’t have the votes to do it.

Jonathan Chait: “Republicans can use a budget reconciliation bill to defund Obamacare. A reconciliation bill can evade a filibuster and pass with just 50 Senators. But that bill can’t create a new system, because reconciliation bills can only be used to change taxes and spending… That means, if Republicans want to actually put a new system into place, and not just turn the health care market into a smoking crater, they need at least 8 Senate Democrats to join them.”

“What that means is that replacing Obamacare at the same time it’s repealed would create completely different parameters for what happens next. There aren’t going to be 8 Democrats willing to support a right-wing bill that throws people into catastrophic coverage plans that don’t cover basic medical care, as conservatives would like.”

“That’s why repeal and delay was the best chance to destroy Obamacare… But this plan only works if 50 Senate Republicans are willing to gamble that they can hold the one-seventh of the economy consumed by health care as a hostage and force a bunch of Democrats to go along. If that gamble fails, the ruin could easily trigger a backlash against the majority party. Apparently not enough Senate Republicans are willing to roll the dice. If this holds, Obamacare, or something substantially similar, is probably going to survive.”

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About Political Wire

goddard-bw-snapshotTaegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Political Job Hunt, Electoral Vote Map and the Political Dictionary.

Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.

Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country.

Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.

Goddard is the owner of Goddard Media LLC.

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