Conservatives fret GOP is blowing Obamacare repeal

The House Freedom Caucus and a number of Republican Study Committee members this week will urge Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and his lieutenants to forego their plan to add replacement provisions to a repeal bill, dubbed “repeal-plus.” Instead, they want to approve the same standalone repeal bill that Congress sent to President Barack Obama in 2016.

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“Instead of continuing to spin our wheels, we need a starting place,” said Republican Study Committee Chairman Mark Walker (R-N.C.) in a brief interview Monday evening. “What the Senate passed in October 2015 is the best starting place… Let’s get that on that on the books, then we can move quickly after that to put in replacement components.”

The stand by several dozen hardliners comes as House GOP leaders were planning to outline the main planks of a replacement blueprint at a series of informational sessions with rank and file member Tuesday and Thursday. The position is at odds with GOP leadership’s latest strategy to load up a spring repeal bill — which could pass both chambers on party lines using a tool called reconciliation — with as many replacement provisions as possible…

Conservatives say they’re not necessarily opposed to all of leaderships’ replacement provisions but worry that adding them to the reconciliation bill will drag the process out for weeks and months.

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