There is a great deal of unity among Republicans when it comes to repealing Obamacare, but not much over House Speaker Paul Ryan's replacement plan, Sen. Rand Paul said Thursday.
"It is false [for him] to go around saying, 'You ran on my plan,'" Paul told MSNBC's "Morning Joe" program. "The heck we did. We have been running on repeal for years and years, but nobody was running on, 'We'll give you half as many subsidies, half as many taxes, instead of paying an individual mandate to the government, pay it to the insurance company.' None of us ran on that."
Further, said Paul, Ryan's plan is "dead on arrival" as no conservatives are backing it, and he believes it will be dead on arrival.
"My hope is it never leaves the House," the senator said. "My hope is we separate repeal from replace. There's great ideas that could have bipartisan support. I have been talking to Democrats all week about, let's have buying groups. AARP has 37 million people. What if we let them become a buying group? Can you imagine the leverage they would have to force prices down?"
Paul said he wants to see lower prices, not "Obamacare lite," as that will not bring down prices.
"We'll be back stuck in the same situation we are in a year from now, with less people with insurance and higher premiums," Paul said.
Understanding how to fix something means understanding what was wrong with it, Paul continued, and what is wrong in this case is the market.
"Group insurance is working largely okay in the country," Paul said. But others are worried they will get sick and see their rates going up.
"Your rates are going up dramatically because we have one fundamental thing that is part of Obamacare that doesn't work," Paul said. "You can get insurance after you are sick. If you say that, you have to force healthy people to get in."
But by putting individuals into groups, Paul said, they will be protected with coverage for preexisting conditions, and will be able to leverage lower prices.
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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