Jonathan Bachman/Reuters
Two leading Republicans said this week that they would be open to repairing the Affordable Care Act instead of repealing and replacing it, which has been the GOP’s stated plan for years. Senators Orrin Hatch and Lamar Alexander said in hearings this week they will consider repairing Obamacare, The Washington Post reported Friday. “I think of it as a collapsing bridge,” Alexander said. “You send in a rescue team and you go to work to repair it so that nobody else is hurt by it and you start to build a new bridge, and only when that new bridge is complete, people can drive safely across it, do you close the old bridge. When it’s complete, we can close the old bridge, but in the meantime, we repair it. No one is talking about repealing anything until there is a concrete practical alternative to offer Americans in its place.” On Thursday, Hatch chimed in at another panel. He said he “could stand either” repealing or repairing the law. “I’m saying I’m open to anything. Anything that will improve the system, I’m for,” he said.