Former Rep. Pete Hoekstra says the proposed repeal and replacement of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) may not be hammered out for months because of ongoing differences among Republicans on Capitol Hill.
And the Michigan Republican adds that if repeal and replacement are not done at exactly the same time, lawmakers who've pushed for the healthcare reform will be "dead politically."
"We're at the beginning of the process. There's some talk about some of these committees will actually starting to vote on this bill tomorrow, but I can tell you, I think this is going to drag out for months," Hoekstra said Tuesday to Miranda Khan, who is filling in J.D. Hayworth on "America Talks Live."
"Because ultimately it's going to be very difficult to get the 218 votes in the House, it's going to be difficult to get to 51 votes in the U.S. Senate.
"And so it's going to be a process of cobbling together a program that basically does repeal Obamacare and replaces it with something that is more market-based and hopefully something that will actually work."
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Hoekstra said that it makes sense to repeal and replace the ACA at the same time.
"I think politically they have to do them basically at the same time because the fear will always be there. If you repeal and you don't have something to go to the public with and say... here's what you're going to be able to do in the future, you'll lose this battle politically and actually you'll lose it emotionally," he said.
"Let's say you're going to repeal Obamacare, you repeal the expansion of Medicaid. There's no doubt Obamacare put more people on insurance and all of a sudden these folks are going to be looking at it and saying, wait a minute, you just repealed Obamacare, you just repealed my access to healthcare insurance and you haven't given me an alternative.
"You have to be ready to provide these people with an answer and say, you used to get healthcare insurance through this process, under the new plan, here's what you're looking at, here's what the costs are going to be and those kinds of things. I think you have to have a replacement at roughly the same time or you're dead politically."
Still, removing the ACA is not an easy thing to sell to the public, Hoekstra said.
"I think the Republicans and every politician recognizes that once you have provided something to the American people, to the public, through the government, it's very difficult if not impossible to pull that benefit back," he said.
"That's why with the entitlements, we've been talking about reforming Social Security for 20, 25 years, we've been talking about reforming Medicare, never happens.
"And now why after seven years of Obamacare why it's going to be very, very difficult to pull back on some of the benefits, pull back from some of the people who now receive their insurance from the government."