Top House Republican utters the 'R' word about Obamacare, and it's not 'repeal' nor is it 'replace'
Jed Lewison/Daily Kos
But now a top Republican, Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers of Washington state, is doing just that:
With the news this week that more than 600,000 Washington residents have acquired new health care plans through the state exchange, U.S. Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers said it’s unlikely the Affordable Care Act will be repealed.Notice that new R-word? Not repeal, not replace ... but reform.“We need to look at reforming the exchanges,” the Eastern Washington Republican said Thursday.
As Steve Benen writes, the game is over: Republicans will still give some lip service to repeal, but comments like these make it clear that GOP leadership understands that Obamacare repeal is a dead issue. The only question at this point is whether the GOP base lets them acknowledge it the way McMorris Rodgers did or if they will still spend waste their time paying rhetorical tribute to Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and the cult of repeal.
1:34 PM PT: McMorris Rodgers now denies believing it's unlikely that Obamacare will be repealed. But she's not disputing using "reform," and the last time I looked in the dictionary, you don't reform something by repealing it.