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Rand Paul on Healthcare Bill: It’s “Obamacare Plus” & “Subsidizes Death Spiral of Obamacare”

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Published on: June 24, 2017

When it comes to many issues, Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) has actually been at the forefront of trying to hold the US Senate to the boundaries of the US Constitution.  In the latest GOP healthcare bill that claims to replace Obamacare, something most Americans don’t want, Paul says it isn’t even “Obamacare Lite,” but rather it’s “Obamacare Plus.”

In an interview on Thursday with Breitbart, Senator Rand Paul said, “I think the bill looks too much like Obamacare. It really doesn’t look like a repeal bill. It looks like we’re keeping Obamacare, it keeps probably 100 percent of the Obamacare subsidies. In fact, we have estimated that it may have more subsidies than Obamacare. It creates a new stabilization fund of over $100 billion. This fund is something that is not consistent with conservative philosophy because it’s the government giving money to insurance companies.”

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“The bill keeps ten of twelve Obamacare regulations that causes the prices of premiums to spiral upward,” the senator added.  “So my fear is that Republicans in putting forward something and saying they’re repealing and replacing Obamacare and not making it better. It actually does not repeal and replacing Obamacare, it replaces it with more Obamacare or Obamacare-Lite, which doesn’t really fix the problem.”

On Thursday evening, Paul appeared on “Your World with Neil Cavuto” and pointed out that the legislation potentially may provide more subsidies than Obamacare.

“When we look at the bill, we actually find that with the Obamacare subsidies, not only are we keeping them, we may actually be providing more subsidies than Obamacare has,” Paul said.  “Our early estimates on the bill are that the bill may spend more in the next year or two than Obamacare does.”

“It’s hard for us to get our mind around that this is a repeal bill if we’re spending more, keeping all the subsidies, and then we’re going to start a brand new federal entitlement program where we give insurance companies money.” Paul added.  “I keep reading it and…it sounds like Obamacare to me. It doesn’t even sound like Obamacare-lite. In some areas, it may be Obamacare-plus, on the subsidy side.”

Paul also said that the bill “subsidizes the death spiral of Obamacare.”

“It dumps a bunch of federal money, taxpayer money, or borrowed money into the insurance industry and says, ‘Hey, please lower the prices if we give you money,’” the Kentucky senator said.

Then, on Friday Paul showed up on Morning Joe to warn that the healthcare bill is actually “propping up” insurance companies.

“The insurance companies make all the money; all of this is predicated upon still propping up the insurance companies.” Paul said.  “You should be able to get insurance for $1 a day. I mean, you really should.”

He then warned that the bill would lead to more insurance company bailouts.

“I want the bill to look more like a repeal bill,” Paul said.  “I promised people I was going to repeal it; I didn’t promise people that I was going to replace it with a federal program of bailing out insurance companies.”

“I mean, we could do this for cars,” he added. “New cars are expensive. We could have a car stabilization fund.”

Yes, and after we’ve seen how government has botched healthcare, who really wants them putting their hands in anything else?  Not me.

In February, Paul walked out of a GOP meeting on Obamacare replacement legislation saying, “I heart things that are unacceptable to me.”  Just weeks later, when Paul Ryan and establishment Republicans were trying to push through their socialized healthcare bill, Paul warned that they were attempting to “pull the wool” over President Donald Trump’s eyes on what he called “Obamacare Lite.”

At that time, Senator Paul decided to introduce a simple bill to fully repeal Obamacare, which was passed in the last Congress.

Paul is not alone in his distaste for the healthcare bill.  Other Senate conservatives are not happy with it either.

Unlike many Republicans, Senator Paul has actually put forward a free market health insurance plan, which many conservatives approve.  However, it seems the establishment want them to compromise their principles and ignore the chains of the Constitution and do what the party wants instead of what the law actually allows them to do.

The question now is, when are we going to see the GOP take up a full repeal of Obamacare, and implement a simple, constitutional means for the regulation of free trade regarding health insurance and then get out of the healthcare business themselves?  My guess is that we are not going to see such a move.

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