Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) said on Wednesday that if Republicans maintain control of Congress after the midterms, they will once again attempt to repeal Obamacare.
“If we had the votes to completely start over, we’d do it. But that depends on what happens in a couple weeks," McConnell said. "We’re not satisfied with the way Obamacare is working.”
McConnell referred to the GOP's failed crusades to repeal the health care law as “the one disappointment of this Congress from a Republican point of view."
Considering polls show healthcare at the top of voters' concerns this year -- and Democrats around the country are running on preserving it -- this is seen as an opportunity for Democrats less than three weeks out from election day.
And in fact Democrats wasted no time in pouncing on McConnell's words.
“If Republicans retain the Senate they will do everything they can to take away families’ health care and raise their costs,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said in a statement. “Americans should take Senator McConnell at his word.”
Other Democrats both inside and outside of the Senate sounded the alarm.
McConnell also plans to go after Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, which he calls "entitlements," as a means of reducing the federal budget deficit.
The spending shortfall has ballooned to nearly $800 billion because of the massive tax cut passage passed late last year, spending increases, and rising interest payments on the national debt.
McConnell claimed last year that the tax cuts would pay for themselves.
“I not only don’t think it will increase the deficit, I think it will be beyond revenue-neutral,” he said. “In other words, I think it will produce more than enough to fill that gap.”
Now that the tax reductions have exploded the deficit, however, McConnell is taking aim at social safety nets.
“It’s disappointing, but it’s not a Republican problem,” McConnell said Tuesday in an interview with Bloomberg News. “It’s a bipartisan problem: unwillingness to address the real drivers of the debt by doing anything to adjust those programs to the demographics of America in the future.”
He added that it would be "very difficult to do entitlement reform, and we’re talking about Medicare, Social Security and Medicaid."
“I think it’s pretty safe to say that entitlement changes, which is the real driver of the debt by any objective standard," McConnell said, "may well be difficult if not impossible to achieve when you have unified government."
McConnell reaffirmed his position in an interview with Reuters.
“We all know that there will be no solution to that, short of some kind of bipartisan grand bargain that makes the very, very popular entitlement programs be in a position to be sustained. That hasn’t happened since the ‘80s,” McConnell said. “But at some point we will have to sit down on a bipartisan basis and address the long-term drivers of the debt.”
McConnell's comments have supporters of the ACA and those that oppose cutting social programs extremely nervous.
Democrats a pressing the issue hard.
McConnell also told Bloomberg that President Barack Obama understood the need for entitlement reform.
“He was a very smart guy, understood exactly what the problem was, understood divided government was the time to do it, but didn’t want to, because it was not part of his agenda,” McConnell said.
“I think it would be safe to say that the single biggest disappointment of my time in Congress has been our failure to address the entitlement issue, and it’s a shame, because now the Democrats are promising ‘Medicare for all,”’ he said. “I mean, my gosh, we can’t sustain the Medicare we have at the rate we’re going and that’s the height of irresponsibility.”
Repealing Obamacare was one of President Donald Trump's campaign promises. If Republicans hold on to Congress, he might get his wish. Millions of people would lose their health insurance. Elections have consequences. Vote.
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