GOP Sen. Mike Lee of Utah argued for a straight repeal of the Affordable Care Act Sunday, asserting that dropping the replacement plan in the Senate is the best way to get the job done.
Lee’s comments on CBS’ “Face The Nation” came with the caveat that the bill currently being considered should only face radical changes like he proposed if it can’t pass Republican approval in the Senate.
“If we can’t get this done … what we ought to do is … push full repeal and then embark on an iterative step-by-step process to decide what comes next,” he said. “If we passed a measure of repealing ObamaCare … with the understanding that at that point after passing the repeal measure, we would undertake a step-by-step process of designing what comes next, I think it’s easier.”
The Utah conservative added that it’s possible that the Senate health care bill tries to do too many things by repealing the Obama-era law, in addition to crafting a replacement.
“Sometimes when you lump too many things into one piece of legislation, you doom its likelihood of success,” Lee said.
Sasse was the first senator to call for a separation of the bill currently under consideration during a Friday interview.
“To date, we’ve been trying to do those two things at once, and not been making enough progress,” Sasse said on “Fox and Friends.” “I still hope that process can work, but most people are leaving D.C. today to go home for the Fourth of July weekend. If we don’t get this resolved by the Monday of next week, July 10, if there isn’t a combined repeal-and-replace plan, I’m writing a letter to the president this morning urging him to call on us to separate them.”
President Donald Trump tweeted his support of a straight repeal bill Friday morning, calling on Senate leadership to divide the bill only if it’s unable to pass in its current form.
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