(Video above: Rep. Bradley Byrne on Fox Business Feb. 4, 2014)
WASHINGTON — Congressman Bradley Byrne (R-AL1) appeared on Fox Business Wednesday evening to discuss his ObamaCare repeal bill that was passed by the House, and the next steps for the country’s healthcare system.
“If you look at this law, it’s not working, and it’s not one of those laws that you can put a little piece here, and put another piece there and it’s going to fix it.” Byrne said in the interview. “All we’ve done is taken a bad law and turned it into Frankenstein. The American people want something a lot better than that.”
The bill “to repeal the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and health care-related provisions in the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010,” passed the House 236-189.
“The best thing to do is admit this law was a mistake, pull back, pass something in its place that’s patient centered that allows the healthcare consumers of America to shop nationwide for the health insurance program that works for them for the money they want to pay.”
“This bill is going to be taken up in the Senate…,” Byrne said, noting that was an impposibility under former Senate Majority leader Harry Reid (D-NV). “They’ve got to find 6 Democrats to vote with the 54 Republicans… At the end of the day these Democrats have to run on this bill as well, and they didn’t fair too well last November.”
Byrne said that while President Obama has already threatened to veto the bill if it makes it to his desk, constituents in Alabama’s 1st Congressional district encourage him to keep pursuing reform.
“When I talk to people in my district… they are angry as they can be about this law because it’s not working for them. If they express themselves enough around the country… I think he’s going to see a lot of pressure on him because there’s a lot of pressure on the members of his party in Congress.”
House Republicans have caught some flack from their Democratic colleagues for pushing to repeal ObamaCare without advancing an option to replace it. Byrne’s bill seeks to change that by instructing relevant committees to construct a new healthcare program, and he has a few ideas of his own for ways to make the insurance market more affordable.
“I want the American people to be able to shop nationwide for their health insurance… so that we can go shop for our health insurance like we shop for anything else online,” he said. “The second thing I would do is make sure that we preserve for the American healthcare consumers the ability to work out what they need to do for their healthcare with their personal physicians and other healthcare providers.”
The Senate is expected to take up Byrne’s bill in the coming weeks, but if the fight currently happening over immigration is any indication, Democrats will staunchly oppose the possibility of a vote.
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— Elizabeth BeShears (@LizEBeesh) January 21, 2015
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