Soon after the Supreme Court upheld Obamacare subsidies Thursday morning, Sen. Rand Paul said that the Supreme Court “missed an opportunity here” to change the law.
The 2016 candidate also lamented to CNN’s Wolf Biltzer that the decision takes “leverage” away from the GOP’s efforts to repeal or fix the law in any way.
RAND PAUL: As a physician, the Supreme Court missed an opportunity here. Obamacare is making all insurance more expensive. I think we made a mistake. If they would have ruled and adhered to the literal nature of the law, maybe Congress would have had a chance to take up Obamacare again and try to make it less bad or fix the parts of it that are causing so many problems in our society. I really think Obamacare is making all insurance more expensive and taking away choice. So I am disappointed that we’ve missed an opportunity here.
WOLF BLITZER: But for all practical purposes, senator, at least for now, any changes, significant changes, in Obamacare, changes you as a physician, as a Republican, as a senator, as a presidential candidate would like — those changes are going away at least for now until — if there is a Republican president that could change, but at least for now you’re resigned to the fact Obamacare stays as is.
PAUL: I would still like to reform it and change it and give patients back more choices on whether they can choose which doctor or which insurance plan, legalize competition and legalize inexpensive insurance again, but it makes it hard because we don’t have the leverage. If we had the leverage where the president had to revisit this because part of it had been struck down, then we would have the leverage to force the president to revisit it. We have majorities and so we can bring it up and we can pass legislation, but getting the president to actually do something about it and actually have the leverage to get him to perhaps sign something that would change Obamacare, I think we’ve lost that leverage.
BLITZER: But just to wrap this up, senator, even if you do — the Republican majorities in the House and Senate pass legislation, the president presumably will veto that legislation and you don’t have two-thirds majorities to override a presidential veto, right?
PAUL: I agree, and that’s why, without this court case, I think we’ve lost the leverage to actually have the president negotiate with us.
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