DON’T GET COCKY

GOP Lawmaker Introduced ‘World’s Greatest Healthcare Plan of 2017’

Rep. Pete Sessions intro’d bill as plan for ACA repeal.

A House Republican has reintroduced his own Obamacare repeal measure with the not-so-subtle title of the “World’s Greatest Healthcare Plan of 2017.” Rep. Pete Sessions (R-TX), chairman of the powerful Rules Committee, introduced the legislation last week, just days before GOP leadership unveiled their proposal to begin the process of repealing and replacing the Affordable Care Act, better known as Obamacare. Sessions was reportedly hoping that his legislation would be the basis of House Republicans’ eventual repeal efforts. Instead, Speaker Paul Ryan and his team modeled their initial bill on legislation authored by former Rep. Tom Price, the Georgia Republican who now leads President Trump’s Department of Health and Human Services. Price said Tuesday that that bill as currently written is a “work in progress,” and that future legislative and regulatory fixes will be necessary to address all of the health-care policies that Republicans hope to implement. Sessions had similarly introduced the “World’s Greatest Healthcare Plan of 2016” last year in an effort to partially repeal the ACA.

–Lachlan Markay