Congressman Jim Jordan (R-OH) On Not Supporting Speaker Ryan’s Obamacare Replacement Bill: You Can’t Get Behind Something If It Doesn’t Do What You Said It Was Going To Do
“If the bill was so good, why did only 17% of the country like it? It’s really a fundamental question, when you have a bad process it leads to a bad policy which leads to bad politics which is why no one in the country likes this piece of legislation. This piece of legislation didn’t do what we told the American people we going to do, it didn’t repeal Obamacare, even Krauthammer said it was Obamacare lite, I didn’t say that, he did. It didn’t lower premiums, the CBO said premiums were going to continue to rise for the next three and a half years and finally, it didn’t unite republicans, it didn’t unite the American people and again, that is why nobody liked the legislation…. you can’t get behind something if it doesn’t do what you said it was going to do and what the American people elected us to do… the fact remains premiums weren’t going to come down and this kept the basic structure, basic format of Obamacare in place….and why not start with something we passed 15 months ago that we put on then President Obama’s desk which was clean repeal, why not start there? In fact that’s where we thought we were going to start.”
—Rep Jim Jordan on why the Freedom Caucus didn’t support Speaker Paul Ryan’s Obamacare replacement bill
Congressman Jim Jordan (R-OH), who is one of the members of the House Freedom Caucus, spoke to Brian Kilmeade about why he and other members of the Freedom Caucus were not able to support Speaker Paul Ryan’s replacement bill for Obamacare and explains why republicans should have moved forward using the same clean repeal of Obamacare that the House passed 15 months ago.
Listen here:
Congressman Jordan on Congressman Ted Poe saying that no matter what changes were made to the Ryan bill, the Freedom Caucus was always going to say no.
(JORDAN) No one wanted to be no, that’s why we wanted to get to yes and that’s why we worked so hard but the goal post was moved right from the beginning. 15 months ago we passed a clean repeal, everyone voted for it and we told the American people that’s what we were for and now, suddenly when it counts we have to move the goal post and start with some completely different legislation that was hidden away and rolled out three and a half weeks ago, that’s how it’s supposed to work?
