What becomes of Republican plans to replace the Affordable Care Act
may well rest in the strategy laid out by New York’s senior senator.
Charles Schumer, almost certain to become Senate minority leader in
2017, will have enormous sway over whether his caucus chooses to work
with President-elect Donald Trump and his allies, or takes a page out of
the Republican playbook and obstructs for as long as possible.
“You can look back and say it was a successful strategy for
Republicans,” said Paul Howard, a senior fellow at the Manhattan
Institute and director of health policy.
Similarly, the Republican triumvirate — House Speaker Paul Ryan,
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Trump — will have to decide
whether they want to repeat the mistake they say President Barack Obama
and the Democrats made in 2010 when they enacted the ACA without a
single Republican vote.
"The threshold question is whether Republicans want to repeat history
and pass whatever they can through reconciliation, or do they want to
think about a replacement plan that can get 60 [Senate] votes,” said
Douglas Holtz-Eakin, a former director of the Congressional Budget
Office who served as chief economic policy adviser to Sen. John McCain's
2008 presidential campaign. “It’s a tough needle to thread.”
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Source: Politico
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