Healthcare

Ron Johnson Still Wants to Repeal Obamacare

Written by SK Ashby

I'm not worried about this for reasons I'll add, but I think it's worth pointing out that a group of Senate Republicans led by Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) are still trying to repeal the remaining parts of Obamacare.

This group of Senate Republicans is expected to unveil an updated plan for repealing Obamacare in the next month or two and, for his part, Ron Johnson is even calling on Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to cancel the August recess to spend the month on repealing Obamacare.

Republican Sen. Ron Johnson is proposing that Congress dedicate August — when members are supposed to be back home in their districts — to repeal. He laid out a plan to pass a budget bill as the vehicle because it triggers a special process that would allow the Senate to repeal Obamacare with 50 votes instead of the usually needed 60.

Now, I'm not especially worried about this because I just don't think it's going to happen.

Senate Republicans tried and failed to pass multiple different bills to repeal Obamacare and they've lost a Senate seat since that time with Doug Jones' victory of Roy Moore in Alabama. Moreover, they failed to pass those bills even before the midterm election season had really arrived.

I'm also skeptical that Mitch McConnell will keep the Senate in Washington to toil away at another failed attempt to repeal Obamacare when they could be home campaigning to keep their seats. McConnell may still desire to repeal Obamacare as much as anyone, but I don't think he's that stupid.

I also believe Senate Republicans as misreading the implications of their failure to repeal Obamacare.

Ron Johnson and Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) still believe their constituents are going to punish them for failing to repeal Obamacare, but the truth is failing to repeal Obamacare may be the best thing they've done during this session of Congress.

There may be a handful of conservative voters out there who will stay home at election day because congressional Republicans failed to repeal Obamacare, but their numbers are small compared to the 10 to 20 million additional people who would lose their health care if Republicans had been succeeded.

Even if this latest attempt to repeal Obamacare fizzles, which I expect it will, the speculation alone could increase the cost of health insurance just as last year's failed attempts did. Democrats should make it clear that Republican sabotage is the reason the cost of health care has gone up so much.