Post-election messaging has had U.S. congressional Republicans stating that they will try to repeal President Barack Obama’s healthcare law next year. On Thursday last week, however, their leader in the Senate admitted the group may have to settle for far more conservative outcomes.
Two days after Republicans scored big victories in congressional elections, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell stated emphatically that there was no room for compromise in the Republican’s bid to test Obama’s landmark law. “We can and should propose and vote on straight repeal repeatedly” of the healthcare law, he said.
McConnell delivered his remarks in a speech to the conservative Heritage Foundation, telling the audience that Obama would veto such legislation, which probably would be blocked by the president’s fellow Democrats in the Senate anyway.
McConnell hinted that Republicans, who will hold a majority in next year’s House of Representatives, may need to take a more pragmatic approach, such as , should aim to slow the healthcare law’s discharge by “denying funds for implementation” of the measure.
Democrats accused Republicans of putting the interests of large corporations ahead of families, a Reuters report stated.
“It speaks volumes that the first thing on Republicans’ ‘to do’ list is to give power back to big health insurance companies,” said Jim Manley, a spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.
The healthcare law, which passed this year in spite of Republican protests, was historic in that it provided sweeping reforms of the U.S. healthcare industry not seen in decades. Among other standards, the law holds that health insurance coverage be provided to millions of people who do not insurance.
