The Republican-led Congress will repeal and replace Obamacare, former Illinois GOP Rep. Michael Patrick Flanagan told
Newsmax TV on Monday.
"The current House leadership, current Senate leadership is committed to repealing and replacing Obamacare," Flanagan, president of Flanagan Consulting, told J.D. Hayworth on "America's Forum."
"The biggest sticking point is the individual mandate and the employer mandate, and those are going to go away," he said.
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"Much of [what] the Republicans have offered many times in the past — insurance portability, the ability of insurance companies to reach across state lines, pre-existing conditions, and so on, many things will remain in the larger package, but the mandates will go," he said.
"That's what it'll generally be replaced by," he added.
However, Flanagan contends he doesn't think "that Obamacare as we know it now — the heavy hand of government requiring that you buy insurance and then keep insurance — will remain."
"The House is committed to that, the Senate is committed to that, and they can move that forward," he said.
"Can they step over the president to get it done? That remains to be seen," he said.
"Bill after bill is going to come forward to the president, and he'll have to find some way to compromise eventually, as they begin to pile on Democrats to help them."
Flanagan told Newsmax that the best way for Republicans to replace Obamacare would be to "repeal it and replace it with something that's Obamacare-like but gets rid of the mandates but puts in a lot of the healthcare changes that many Democrats would like to see."
Such "a bipartisan bill could be generated, and the president . . . would have to pay attention to that" even though the Republicans lack "veto-proof numbers."
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