Sen. Rand Paul continued Tuesday to downplay a proposed bill to replace the Affordable Care Act as "Obamacare light," but he does like that President Donald Trump is still considering the matter up for negotiation.
"I spoke with the president yesterday," the Kentucky Republican told Fox News' "Fox & Friends" program. "He is open-minded on this. He wants Obamacare repealed like all conservatives do, but realizes conservatives have a lot of objections."
Under the new House bill, Paul said, "premiums and prices will continue to spiral out of control," and too much is left over from Obamacare, including the individual mandate, and there is "nothing to help consumers join associations to bring prices down."
"All over the liberal press, they're saying 'oh, who is going to lose their insurance?'" said Paul. "They have to realize people who have insurance can't use it now because it is too expensive on premiums, but way too expensive on deductibles.
"In a real marketplace, the higher the deductible, the lower the premium. We have completely broken the insurance marketplace. Obamacare light doesn't fix it."
Earlier on the program, Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney called the replacement plan the one "everybody asked for" and the one Trump promised when he ran.
Further, Mulvaney said the new plan will save costs by giving states more control over their Medicaid dollars, but Paul disagreed.
"Medicaid would expand on CPI (Consumer Price Index) medical, which is the inflation index going up 4 percent," said Paul. "If you introduce a new Medicaid expansion, allow it to continue and allow it to grow at 4 percent, that is untenable.
"That is already our problem. We already have entitlement, Medicare and Medicaid woefully underfunded and have enormous debt attached to them."
Paul also disagreed that the individual mandate provision under Obamacare had been dropped, as there is still a penalty involved.
"If you drop your insurance and want to buy it again, there is a penalty," said Paul. "Under Obamacare, you had to pay the government the penalty. [Under] 'Obamacare light' [from] the House leadership plan you will pay the penalty to the insurance company. This is in all likelihood unconstitutional."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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