Rand Paul and the Freedom Caucus to file alternative Obamacare repeal legislation

  Earlier this week the House Republicans made news by announcing their Obamacare repeal legislation which for all intents and purposes does not really repeal Obamacare but rather looks to shift some of it around by changing some of the semantics to make it seem as though this is a better plan.

  This bill would appear to be dead on arrival with the Democrats–the party of no–already lining up against it in order to save Barack Obama’s legacy and with conservative Republicans deriding the legislation by calling it Obamacare-lite.

    In the wake of this news Rand Paul and the House Freedom Caucus are aligning themselves–most likely with Ted Cruz and others as well–to introduce a conservative alternative to fully repeal and replace Obamacare.

  Here is more:

Members of the House Freedom Caucus stood with Sen. Rand Paul (R.-Ky.) Tuesday to denounce the Obamacare replacement bill supported by House Speaker Paul Ryan (R.-Wis.) and to announce the filing of Paul’s own bill, which is sponsored in the House by Rep. Jim  Jordan (R.-Ohio).

“There is one thing that has united Republicans in 2010, when we won the House; in 2014, when we won the Senate; and 2016 when we won the White House,” said Paul, who was flanked by members of the House Freedom Caucus, including the caucus chairman Rep. Mark Meadows (R.-N.C.) and Jordan, the previous HFC chairman.

  Let me interrupt my block-quote here to state that yes the repeal of Obamacare did unite the Republicans and enabled them victories in the years mentioned above but it has become clear that the establishment Republicans were only interested in using the repeal as an election tool and now that that mission has been accomplished we are learning their true colors. 

  But anyway, here is more:

“Conservatives have a replacement plan. House leadership has a replacement plan,” he said. “Vote on all the replacement plans and let’s see what happens.”

Jordan said the plan supported by Ryan and the House Republican leadership is Obamacare in a different form.

“Then, there is our plan,” he said. “It is the one that I think is consistent with what we told the voters we’re going to do: Repeal Obamacare and replace it with a market-centered, patient-centered, and doctor-centered plan that actually brings down the cost of insurance.”

  We know, and Rand Paul has stated, that the conservatives want to vote on repeal first and then vote on their replacement plan while Paul Ryan and the establishment Republicans want to do both at the same time and this is where the battle lines are going to be drawn.

  It seems to me that these warring factions in the Republican party have doomed the current repeal legislation but while we know the conservatives want to repeal Obamacare we still have not seen what the replacement plan is. This is going to be an interesting fight.

malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium