Sen. Rand Paul: GOP Healthcare Plan Keeps Most of Obamacare

The Senate's leadership has done a great deal to placate moderates when it comes to healthcare reform, but lawmakers who have promised to completely repeal Obamacare believe it's necessary to end it to bring down healthcare costs for the nation, Sen. Rand Paul said Wednesday.

"They've kept most of the Obamacare subsidies," the Kentucky Republican told the "CBS This Morning" show.

"They actually keep the Medicare and Medicaid expansions forever. Eventually the states have to pay, but they actually managed to keep it."

Paul said he has spoken to President Donald Trump, and he thinks "it's important for all of us and the country that we repeal Obamacare, but I guess I tried to make sure he understands many of us don't think the current bill is repealable."

Senators have voted 60 times to repeal all of Obamacare or as much as possible, he continued, and were able to repeal much of it, but "here we are keeping quite a bit of it."

Paul said he does not believe that it gets rid of taxes and keeps spending "very honest."

"We didn't have a real honest debate," Paul said. "We have people squawking that we're not keeping enough Medicaid expansion, when, in fact, we keep it for seven years. We let the expansion states continue to expand, and it never has been really an honest accounting with Medicaid."

Further, said Paul, "nobody believes" the new healthcare reform plan is saving money.

"They're creating a brand-new insurance fund," said Paul.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has said Republicans and Democrats may have to get together to discuss healthcare reform, but Paul said Wednesday he thinks that should wait "once we can repeal the things Democrats would never repeal, we should sit down with Democrats. They're never going to repeal any taxes or anything."

The senator, also appearing on Fox News' "America's Newsroom," said McConnell has not yet given him an audience on some of his ideas for reform, including allowing group coverage for small businesses, rejecting bailouts for insurance companies, and eliminating a waiting period for people whose coverage has relapsed.

"We've given moderates in our caucus lots of money to keep spending," said Paul. "They get to keep the Obamacare subsidies and regulations. They get to create a new federal super fund for insurance company bailouts.

"Those are all things that big spending Republicans want. Now, if they want conservatives to be on board, they have to start talking about what we promised — repeal."

There are currently as many as 12 Republican senators who have said they may not vote for the GOP plan, and Paul, who is one of them, said he believes healthcare was already broken before Obamacare, but got worse.

"There are so many problems in healthcare," he said. "The Obamacare death spiral is so desperate I don't know that we'll immediately be able to fix it. What we ought to do is let's repeal the worst parts of Obamacare."

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