The House Freedom Caucus of 35 to 40 conservatives in the House of Representatives took an official position Monday on repealing the Affordable Care Act.
They want to repeal the act as in a 2015 repeal bill, without replacement, then come back and deal with replacing the act later.
The position of repeal-first spotlights the differences between the caucus and Republican leadership, which aims to include replacement provisions with a repeal bill in the spring, according to Politico.
Freedom Caucus Chairman Mark Meadows said that any bill to repeal must at least be as strong as a 2015 repeal bill that broke apart the act, nicknamed Obamacare.
"My concern is [a bill to both repeal and replace] will give some lackadaisical senator a reason to vote against it," Arizona Rep. Trent Franks, a Freedom Caucus member, said.
One Republican lawmaker, Florida Rep. Gus Bilirakis, told his constituents that he would not go along with any repeal plan until a replacement was in place, according to Bloomberg.
A full repeal would require 218 Republicans in the House and 50 in the Senate to pass, according to The Huffington Post.
Business Insider reported that House Speaker Paul Ryan has changed the Obamacare timeline a number of times. The end of the first quarter of 2017 is the latest estimate, according to CNBC.
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