Will This One Sentence End Obamacare?

Republicans said they wanted to repeal and replace Obamacare, and when President Barack Obama’s veto guaranteed it wouldn’t happen, they voted multiple times to do just that.

But with the new unified Republican government in Washington, D.C., they have failed to come to a consensus as to what “repeal and replace” should look like. Although Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) has backed away from earlier comments that the effort to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act was over for now, and he’s saying Republicans are regrouping to take another swing at it, one conservative member of Congress wants to get the most important part out of the way immediately.

U.S. Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.) filed the two-page Obamacare Repeal Act prior to the failed vote on the American Health Care Act. While small in size—its enabling clause is just one sentence—it will be perhaps the most powerful sentence in American history, if adopted, by undoing 1,990 pages of the original Obamacare legislation, as well as the more than 20,000 pages of new regulations created as a result of its adoption.

Here’s what the bill says:

Effective as of Dec. 31, 2017, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is repealed, and the provisions of law amended or repealed by such Act are restored or revived as if such Act had not been enacted.

That’s it.

Brooks’ staffers filed a discharge petition to bring his bill out of committee for a floor vote. But, so far, it hasn’t had any takers. The bill itself also doesn’t have any co-sponsors. But, as the congressman noted, this is a moment of truth for the “Surrender Caucus.”

“Let me be clear. A lot of Republican congressmen campaigned to repeal Obamacare, voted in 2015 to repeal Obamacare (when it did not matter because of President Obama’s veto), yet insisted on preserving the worst of Obamacare in Obamacare 2.0,” he said. “These Republican congressmen who publicly oppose Obamacare yet support it behind closed doors constitute a ‘Surrender Caucus’ that hopes the Obamacare issue will simply go away …

“If the American people want to repeal Obamacare, this is their last, best chance during the 115th Congress. Those congressmen who are sincere about repealing Obamacare may prove it by signing the discharge petition. At a minimum, the discharge petition will, like the sun burning away the fog, show American voters who really wants to repeal Obamacare and who merely acts that way during election time.” {eoa}