04 Dec 2014 New Congress Could See “Tons of Conflict” with White House over ObamaCare

Asked about his predictions for health care policy reform in the next session of Congress now that the Republicans control the House of Representatives and the Senate, National Center policy analyst David Hogberg suggested there might be a “smattering of cooperation… but coupled with tons of conflict.”

On the 12/3/14 edition of “The Rick Amato Show” on the One America News Network, David said that the Obama Administration might come to the table on some ObamaCare reforms such as the medical device tax and adjusting the employer mandate, but they will likely refuse to budge on the individual mandate and provisions to bail out the insurance industry.  Bringing up the upcoming U.S. Supreme Court case of King v. Burwell that challenges subsidies to those enrolled in the federal exchange, he said a loss for the Obama Administration would likely mean “all bets are off” as far as working with Republicans on reforms.

Amato asked David about comments by former Florida governor Jeb Bush, who said his fellow Republicans should drop intentions to repeal ObamaCare in favor of creating alternatives to it.  David noted that Bush may be “half-right,” but that “implementing those ideas is going to still require repealing at least some parts of ObamaCare” such as the individual mandate, community rating and guaranteed issue.  He added that allowing ObamaCare to remain virtually untouched is “not possible if you want to come up with a free-market alternative.”