Toomey Outlines Republican Mindset For Replacing Obamacare
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) - Pennsylvania Senator Pat Toomey addressed Republicans plans to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, telling Chris Stigall on Talk Radio 1210 WPHT that he expects their alternative to look a lot different than the existing law.
"Nobody should be holding their breath waiting for the Republican version of how you take over healthcare. I'm not interested in that. I don't know any Republican who is. We're not going to have any such thing. What we should do, and what I believe we will do is have a series of discreet reforms that allow insurance to be more affordable, more available, where the policy content is driven by consumers, families, individuals, rather than a government bureaucracy, where we have a competitive market so that insurance companies have to actually compete and earn the business of the families they insure."
He promised that no one will have their insurance taken away once Donald Trump takes office.
"There are millions of Americans who, through no fault of their own, are complying with the law that forced them to buy a product that they couldn't afford. Many of them, then, got a subsidy because that's how this is all designed. It would be completely unreasonable for us to wake up one morning here and pull the rug out from under all those people. They were following the law. It's a terrible law, but they were doing the right thing because we need to be a nation that follows the laws."
However, Toomey did state that it will take some time to get everything in place that they want to accomplish.
"The effective end of all of this mess can't occur overnight. It took six years to get into this hole, for Obamacare to completely fall apart, as it has been doing, and it's going to take a little while for us to be able to make some of the reforms that will create affordable alternatives to the mess that we have today."
