Conservatives Fear GOP Leaders Giving Up on Obamacare Repeal

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Many House conservatives backed the budget last month and spared GOP leaders another showdown with their right flank for one big reason: They were under the impression the spending blueprint would help them -- finally -- get an Obamacare repeal to the president's desk.

Now they're concerned that Speaker John Boehner and company have other plans.

Conservatives are adamant that reconciliation -- the rarely used fast-track procedure that allows the Senate to pass legislation with a simple majority rather than 60 votes -- be used to pass a repeal of the health care law. They believed GOP leaders were on board.

But as House and Senate lawmakers have met to hash out a compromise budget over the past few weeks, conservatives noted that House Republican leaders have been talking about leaving their options open. An Obamacare repeal is a possibility, but so is a health care "fix" should the Supreme Court knock down some Obamacare tax credits in a case to be decided within a few months.

The ambiguity is causing consternation within the House Freedom Caucus, the few dozen conservatives who've repeatedly given Boehner grief over big-ticket items that have split the GOP. Some conservatives are pushing Republican leaders to clarify their intentions -- with a public announcement, a provision in the budget or a private assurance.

"It's imperative that [Obamacare repeal] be the focus for our reconciliation instructions," said Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) at a Heritage Foundation event last week, referring to the guidance the budget has to include in order to employ the procedure.

House Republicans have already voted more than 50 times to try to defund, alter or overturn the health care law that conservatives despise. The latest effort, if it happens, would no doubt fail, too -- and there are some indications that GOP leaders are ready to move on. But getting a bill to President Barack Obama's desk and forcing him to veto it would send a powerful symbolic message to the Republican base that House conservatives haven't given up on scuttling the law.

The topic took center stage during a recent caucus meeting. It also came up during a press luncheon last week with the most conservative House members. Rep. Bill Flores (R-Texas), who chairs the conservative Republican Study Committee, has been voicing concerns.

No one is threatening to bail on the budget, at least not yet, but conservatives' angst is palpable.

Jordan, who chairs the Freedom Caucus, was perhaps the linchpin of House leaders' success getting their budget across the finish line despite dissatisfaction from fiscal conservatives and defense hawks. Believing that reconciliation would later be used to approve a repeal of Obamacare, Jordan supported the winner-take-all strategy that allowed conservatives to register dissatisfaction with the spending numbers but back the budget when it reached the House floor.

"We told [the voters] time and time again, we are committed to getting rid of this law," Jordan said recently. "So, let's make sure we keep this thing front and center in the political debate, put it on the president's desk [and] actually make him veto it."

The debate comes as House and Senate budget conferees prepare to announce a budget deal as early as Monday. A key sticking point in the negotiations has been over reconciliation: Senate budgeters want to use the process only for an Obamacare repeal. The House version gives reconciliation authority to more than a dozen committees, including many that have little or nothing to do with health care. That means, theoretically, they could try to find savings in the farm bill, transportation or an overhaul of the Tax Code.

House leaders fought hard to keep their open-ended version, with leaders talking recently about "flexibility" to look beyond an Obamacare repeal.

The right wants to know what they're up to.

"We haven't gotten specific directions; no one has come out and said we're definitely going to do this," said Rep. John Fleming (R-La.), a Freedom Caucus member. "Whenever it's discussed, it's: "These are the various things we could put into [reconciliation],' and the first one is always the repeal of Obamacare. But no one has ever come out, that I'm aware of, and said, point-blank, "Obamacare is going to be it.'"

A spokesman for Boehner (R-Ohio) said the party needs to focus on the bigger picture: Getting a budget passed.

Without an agreement, "there is no possible way we can get a repeal of Obamacare to the president's desk," said Michael Steel. "That's why we're focused on reaching an agreement, and then passing it."

One of the key reasons Republican leaders have held back on committing to an Obamacare repeal is because they want to see how the Supreme Court rules in King v. Burwell, which seeks to invalidate tax subsidies obtained through federal exchanges. Millions of people now depend on those subsidies to afford health care under the law, and Republicans could be blamed if the high court strikes them down and the party doesn't offer a replacement.

So GOP leaders are eyeing reconciliation as a way to approve a potential "fix" for Obamacare should the need arise. Some Republicans think it could give the GOP a golden opportunity to force Obama's hand: When he finds himself in a jam, with millions stranded over health care, they hope he could be forced to accept a GOP alternative that helps those individuals.

But some conservatives want no part of what they view as an attempt to rescue the law.

"Save Obamacare?" an exasperated Rep. Tim Huelskamp (R-Kan.) said when asked his opinion of a King v. Burwell fix. The Freedom Caucus member voted against the House budget because of what he called a "weak" commitment to repealing the Affordable Care Act. "I don't know why we would save Obamacare. … I'm worried about stopping Obamacare. Fixing it?"

Rep. Mick Mulvaney (R-S.C.) said there will be a "whole-scale uprising in the base" if reconciliation isn't used to repeal the Affordable Care Act. He echoed Huelskamp on the King case.

"I don't think King v. Burwell is the magic bullet," he said. "The overwhelming majority of folks at the [Freedom Caucus] meeting -- and we have 40 members -- believe that Plan A has to be reconciliation to pass a repeal."

Republican Study Committee Chairman Bill Flores (R-Texas) said Republicans are split over what to do if the Supreme Court invalidates the health care subsidies. Some want to "build a bridge" for the nearly 8 million people who could lose their subsidies, giving them some sort of financial assistance to replace the health care tax credits until Republicans come up with a new health care law.

Others just want to pin it squarely on the White House and their adversaries on the left, who wrote the law and "should own those laws," Flores said in an interview.

"There's not a good consensus at this point," Flores said, adding that he's not keen on replacing the subsidies.

He and Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) released a joint statement last week urging budget conferees to focus on repeal. They're considering a "Dear Colleagues" letter to fellow Republicans to press their case.

"Though there are many important reforms to be addressed by Congress, reconciliation is a tool that works best when it is focused and precise," the statement read. Both lawmakers "support using narrow reconciliation language which is focused on the full repeal of Obamacare."

Other stanch conservatives, like GOP Reps. Mark Meadows of North Carolina and Matt Salmon of Arizona, seem open to using reconciliation to fix King.

"As much as I've been a strong opponent of the Affordable Care Act … we've got to do the responsible thing and make sure those people aren't harmed in the process," Meadows told POLITICO.

But most conservatives who seem open to the idea stressed that the same bill must also repeal Obmamcare -- what they call "repeal-plus."

Under tricky reconciliation rules, it's unclear whetherthey could both replace the subsidies and repeal the law as a whole.

Another Freedom Caucus member said that, even if it were possible to both repeal Obamacare and fix the potential subsidies problem, there's a chance repeal would be dropped as a practical matter because Obama would never sign such a bill.

Jordan also noted that any legislation passed through reconciliation could never win the president's signature without being bipartisan -- and thus likely to clear the Senate's usual 60-vote threshold, anyway.

Right now, the Ohio Republican is pressing his argument on reconciliation.

"If there's some wiggle room there, we want to make sure it stays focused on the Affordable Care Act," he said. "We've just got to make the case."

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