The Republicans' healthcare plan proposal amends Obamacare, not replaces it, according to Rep. Mark Meadows Wednesday on Fox News.
"This bill is just Obamacare in a different form. If you just look at the bill text, the very first paragraph says it amends the Affordable Care Act, it doesn't repeal it," Meadows, a North Carolina Republican, said.
Political consultant Karl Rove said that Meadows approved of a repeal-and-replace bill sponsored by Tom Price, but Meadows said that the new bill is not the same.
"If Karl Rove wants to bring out his whiteboard and we want to debate it back and forth on healthcare, I welcome that. If Karl Rove wants to look at Tom Price's bill, he needs to look at Section 2 and Section 3 of the bill that I endorsed. It repealed the mandates. It repealed the insurance mandates. It actually did what we're promising the American people. This is not Tom Price's bill. Karl Rove knows that," Meadows said.
Americans will not accept this new bill as is, Meadows said. "This is smoke and mirrors, when we suggest that we're going to dupe the American people, we're going to do this bill behind closed doors, and roll it out and expect the American people to believe it? Let me just tell you, they're smarter than that."
He said he is open to negotiating, but one priority remains. "Health insurance premiums must come down. If they don't, we have failed," Meadows said.
Meadows' wife Debbie Meadows is also against the bill. On Feb. 28, she sent an email to North Carolina Republicans on the topic, according to Politico.
"In a nutshell, for reasons we cannot fathom, Republican leadership is putting forth a so-called Obamacare 'repeal' that is not a repeal at all," she wrote in the letter.