Rather than voting to repeal ObamaCare, the House voted instead to retain much of ObamaCare under the guise of “repeal and replace.” The legislation (H.R. 1628), known as the American Health Care Act (AHCA), was strongly backed by President Trump and the Republican congressional leadership. Consequently most Republicans voted for the bill, but 20 voted against it. Liberty-minded Representative Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) noted that the AHCA entailed “replacing mandates, subsidies and penalties with mandates, subsidies and penalties.” Another Republican lawmaker, Representative Andy Biggs (Ariz.), while “applaud[ing] all the hard work of the House Freedom Caucus, which has made every effort … to improve this legislation,” nonetheless concluded that the “final bill … does not meet the promises I made to my constituents.” Biggs added, “I remain committed to a full repeal of ObamaCare.”
The House passed H.R. 1628 on May 4, 2017 by a vote 217 to 213 (Roll Call 256). We have assigned pluses to the nays because ObamaCare should be repealed, not replaced with a Republican variant of unconstitutional government healthcare that more liberty-minded lawmakers have referred to as “ObamaCare Lite” and “ObamaCare 2.0.” Admittedly, the Democrats who voted against this GOP alternative have gotten “pluses” on this for the wrong reasons (they do not want to move away from the ObamaCare brand and in many cases want even more socialized medicine), but the Republicans who voted against the bill based on principle as opposed to partisanship are to be applauded.
