Ted Cruz Laughs At 3 Phases O-Care Replacement Plan: ‘That Ain’t Gonna Happen’

Sen. Ted Cruz wasted no time mincing words on what he thinks about the three phases of the “World’s Greatest Healthcare Plan of 2017” Sunday morning on Face the Nation.

“That ain’t gonna happen,” Cruz told host John Dickerson when asked about the 3-phase plan President Trump and House Republicans have been pushing since the roll out their non-repeal and replacement of the Affordable Care Act.

The senator pointed out the inherent flaws with the House’s bill. The most glaring being that it doesn’t lower premiums and relies on eight Democrats to pass the lauded “Phase 3,” which has “all the good stuff.”

Cruz laid out the minimum for what an Obamacare repeal and replacement need to contain to be effective — including repealing the 12 insurance mandates, allowing premiums to be paid through Health Savings Account (HSAs) and opening insurance markets across state lines — and insisted it could be done in one fell swoop if taken up as a budgetary matter.

Whether or not Senate Republicans have the desire or stomach for such a move is doubtful, but Cruz hit on one very important point. If Republicans pass the House bill as is and then go around patting themselves on the back when they haven’t effectively changed anything — or worse, never get around to Phases 2 and 3 — then Americans will be ready to “tar and feather [Republicans] in the street and quite rightly.”

Republicans ran on repealing Obamacare since the moment it was passed with the sole support of Democrats. If Republicans whiff with the repeal and replace, they’re going to be seen as the biggest scammers in modern American politics and could very likely hand Congress back to the Democrats by 2020, if not 2018.

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