Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Trump Insists On Quick Replace Vote: 'Long To Me Would Be Weeks'
President-elect Donald J. Trump demanded on Tuesday that Congress immediately repeal the Affordable Care Act and pass another health law quickly. His remarks put Republicans in the nearly impossible position of having only weeks to replace a health law that took nearly two years to pass. 鈥淲e have to get to business,鈥 Mr. Trump told The New York Times in a telephone interview. 鈥淥bamacare has been a catastrophic event.鈥 (Haberman and Pear, 1/10)
After years of promising to repeal the Affordable Care Act, a growing number of Republicans are balking at the prospect of doing so quickly without a firm plan to replace it. As the Senate begins voting Wednesday on a path to eliminate the landmark health-care bill, some Republicans are worried about the political fallout and uncertainty of starting to roll back Obamacare without knowing how the process will end.President-elect Donald J. Trump was among the Republicans expressing concern Tuesday. (Snell, Sullivan and Goldstein, 1/10)
The push for speed and coordination came as growing numbers of Republicans expressed concerns about GOP leadership's plans to repeal the Affordable Care Act without a replacement in hand, potentially leaving the 20 million people who gained coverage under the law in limbo. (1/10)
鈥淟ong to me would be weeks,鈥 Trump said of how long it should take to pass a replacement. 鈥淚t won鈥檛 be repeal and then two years later go in with another plan.鈥 (Shelbourne, 1/10)
Congressional Republicans have set up a multi-step process to repeal the law, starting with a budget resolution which the Senate is set to vote on by Thursday morning. The House expects to follow suit and vote on the resolution by the end of the week. The budget resolution doesn鈥檛 actually repeal the health care law, but instructs four congressional committees to draft reconciliation legislation that would allow the Senate to repeal Obamacare with a simple majority of 51 votes. (McIntire, 1/10)
Republicans in both chambers are showing growing uneasiness about the rush to deliver swiftly on one of Trump鈥檚 top campaign promises. (Dennis and Kapur, 1/10)
Republicans on Capitol Hill are in disarray about how to repeal Obamacare and President-elect Donald Trump鈥檚 call on Tuesday to enact a replacement 鈥渧ery quickly鈥 did nothing to clear up the turmoil. Trump told The New York Times that he wants a repeal to happen within days and 鈥渢he replace will be very quickly or simultaneously, very shortly thereafter.鈥 The statement took lawmakers on Capitol Hill by surprise. (Haberkorn and Cancryn, 1/10)
In other news on the president elect's relationship with the Republicans in Congress聽鈥
Time and again on the campaign trail, Donald Trump pledged to his supporters that he wouldn鈥檛 gut Medicare as president. Trump鈥檚 incoming chief of staff, Reince Priebus, doubled down on that position over the weekend, insisting that his boss wouldn鈥檛 鈥渕eddle鈥 with Medicare or Social Security. But a week before Trump鈥檚 inauguration, that campaign promise is already encountering fierce resistance from Republicans on Capitol Hill. For years, GOP lawmakers 鈥 led by Speaker Paul Ryan (Wis.) 鈥 have been sounding the alarm that a major overhaul to Medicare and other entitlements are needed to ensure they don鈥檛 go bankrupt. (Wong, 1/11)