McConnell Can’t Answer How GOP Will Insure Americans After Repealing ObamaCare: ‘That Is Not The Issue’

Our healthcare plan is allow
insurance companies to deny you care.

By Ben Armbruster/Think Progress


Since the Supreme Court last week upheld the Affordable Care Act, Republicans have been scrambling for a response. Without much to say now that the law has been ruled constitutional, the GOP has fallen back on its pledge to repeal ObamaCare. However, the new health care law provides 30 million Americans with access to health insurance. So how do Republicans plan to replace this key feature if they repeal?

Fox News’s Chris Wallace asked Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) this important question on Fox News Sunday today and the senior senator from Kentucky had no answer. After McConnell meandered through the typical GOP talking points that they plan to allow the sale of health insurance across state lines and that they will institute medical malpractice reform, he finally settled on an answer: Insuring Americans “is not the issue”:

WALLACE: One of the keys to ObamaCare is that it will extend insurance access to 30 million people who are now uninsured. In your replacement, how would you provide universal coverage?

MCCONNELL: Well first let me say the first single thing we can do for the American system is get rid of ObamaCare. … The single biggest direction we can take in terms of improving health care is to get rid of this monstrosity. [...]

WALLACE: But you’re talking about repealing and replace, how would you provide universal coverage?

MCCONNELL: I’ll get to it in a minute. [...]

WALLACE: I just want to ask, what specifically are you going to do to provide universal coverage to the 30 million people who are uninsured?

MCCONNELL: That is not the issue. The question is, how can you go step by step to improve the American health care system. … We’re not going to turn the American health care system into a Western European system.

Watch the clip:

If Republicans are successful in repealing ObamaCare, they’ll also have to answer how they’ll provide coverage for those with pre-existing conditions, lower-income Americans, and even the millions of young Americans who can now stay on their parents’ health care plans until age 26.