Washington, DC
Although Senate Republicans were unable to pass their plan to dismantle the Affordable Care Act, at least one member of Massachusetts’ congressional delegation offered Friday that Democrats should not bask in the “skinny repeal” effort’s failure.
Instead, U.S. Rep. Richard Neal, D-Springfield, argued, lawmakers from both sides of the aisle should take the health care bill’s narrow defeat as a signal that Congress must return to its traditional process of considering legislation.
It was the most dramatic night in the United States Senate in recent history. Just ask the senators who witnessed it.
Stressing that this is not “a moment for triumphalism,” the congressman attributed the failure of Senate efforts to repeal the law known as Obamacare to Republicans’ lack of a replacement plan.
Neal, the top Democrat on the House Ways and Means Committee, further took issue with GOP leaders’ partisan approach to overhauling the health care system, contending that his party held hearings and considered amendments when crafting the ACA in 2010.
“You cannot write health insurance (legislation) on eight pages for 320 million members of the American family,” he said of Senate Republicans’ health care plan in a phone interview. “We need to go back to the amendment process — which we used seven years ago — public hearings and the opportunity for both sides to find common ground to improve the Affordable Care Act.”
The congressman, who acknowledged that Republicans have criticized the way in which the ACA was passed, attributed the repeal effort’s Senate failure to the millions of Americans who have gained health insurance under former President Barack Obama’s landmark law.
Although Republicans were in both chambers were previously successful in delivering an ACA repeal bill to Obama’s desk, Neal added, it’s easier to pass legislation when you know it won’t be signed into law.
“Twenty-three million more Americans have health insurance than did before the Affordable Care Act was established and I think that became a very stubborn number for the other side to overcome,” he said. “In addition, I also think that they had a political advantage for seven years when they had a Democratic president who they knew would veto their plan.
“They were able to play to the politics of the issue, but once they had to get to the policy of the issue that was a very different argument.”
Moving forward, Neal said he’d like to see members of Congress work together in the legislative process, particularly on proposed tax system overhauls, federal spending bills and any future iterations of legislation to modify the ACA.
“This is an argument, I think, to return to the regular order — the actual notion of holding hearings, offering amendments and maybe even someday getting to conference reports the way the Congress once functioned when many of us joined,” he offered during a morning news conference with Democratic leaders.
As Congress prepares to take on tax overhaul legislation, Neal urged Republicans against using the reconciliation process, which allows for expedited consideration of bills, as they did with health care.
The Springfield Democrat echoed his recent call for GOP leaders to work on tax system changes in a bipartisan fashion.
“I don’t think at the moment we are being included and that’s why it comes down to the process of reconciliation,” he said. “Once they announce whether or not they’re going to use reconciliation — and they have hinted that they intend to do that — then that pretty much says they’re going to try to go at it alone. And I think that they’ll end up with the same unpleasant conclusion as to what happened with the Affordable Care Act.”
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