Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, outlining changes he wants on the Obamacare repeal bill, said Congress should have had more time to digest the proposed new law.
"I'd have rather seen it out there for a week or 10 days before they go to committee to mark it up," he said in an interview on CNN's "New Day."
"The White House and the leadership has had a discussion about how they want the timing of this to work so they rolled this bill out, and we should have had more time to digest it.
"There really isn't much time for anybody to bring amendments and try to make the change. And we don't get amendments passed unless we get public support for that and it takes time for the organizations from outside to weigh in.
"This is the agenda we have and leadership wants to build momentum. If I were leadership, I wouldn't back up but I would have given more time in the beginning."
And King noted he still wants to see certain changes in the bill, including the elimination of refundable tax credits. He called for those to be replaced with "the deductability that employers have for premiums."
"That does give a level playing field and then eliminate the mandates — the dozen or so mandates that are in Obamacare today that are retained by this bill," he said.
"And if we don't do so, then any promise that we'll later on pass the bill that is on the House calendar now to sell insurance across state lines will be not necessarily nullified, but diluted in its impact because every policy will have to have those dozen or so mandates in it, which drives up the cost and takes away consumers choices.
"Those are some of the things I think that would go a long way toward getting a strong support from Republicans and maybe even universal support from Republicans.
© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.