Trump open to making GOP health care bill better: Rand Paul
Kentucky Senator Rand Paul visited the White House on Tuesday to discuss his opposition to the GOP’s plan to reform health care. He told the FOX Business Network’s Stuart Varney that President Trump is willing to improve the Senate health care bill.
“I told him I’m very much open to making the bill better, I think he is also, but Senate leadership so far has had no communication with any of us that are really opposed to the so much of keeping of Obamacare,” he said.
Two years ago the Senate voted to repeal Obamacare, gradually end subsidies and gradually end Medicaid expansion over a two year period. But now, the bill keeps subsidies and adds a brand new $130 billion bailout for insurance companies, according to Paul.
“The insurance companies make $15 billion a year and we are going to give them $130 billion of taxpayer money—it’s obscene, what kind of conservative notion is that? We could lower the price of cars also. We can have a car stabilization fund. We can have a college stabilization fund. We can have an iPhone stabilization fund—it’s insane. It’s obscene to say we are going to give rich companies taxpayer money,” he said.
Paul said Republican Senate leadership is working with a “mix of people” to pass reform, but would not give in to Democrats on keeping Obamacare.
“Health care is quite complicated and there is a great danger to owning it without fixing it and so if you pass something that’s not going to work and we come up in about a year and premiums are rising 25 [to] 30 percent, still the insurance companies are dropping out of the individual market… people are going to say why did we give Republicans control of the Congress since they didn’t know what they were doing,” he said.
Paul added that he would not be responsible for voting to keep Obamacare.