The House on Thursday approved legislation to drastically alter parts of the Affordable Care Act, inching closer to President Trump’s campaign promise to repeal and replace “Obamacare” and reshape American healthcare.
Republicans faced criticism from Democrats for pushing such unpopular legislation, which some said is “career suicide” — going so far as to serenade Republicans with “Na na na na, na na na na, hey hey hey, goodbye!”
According to Rep. Joe Kennedy III, this bill represents a problematic new trend in the legislative process — ramming an agenda through without proper vetting.
“There’s an awful lot of lessons here about how not to pass legislation,” Kennedy said during an interview with Boston Public Radio Friday. “If you’re proud of a bill, then you’re willing to take it to the American public and defend it and debate it and stand behind it, and they didn’t do that. Ultimately, the American public is going to pay the price for it.”
“If you were proud of this bill, if you believed in it, if you were willing to stand behind it, you had no problem in pressing pause for a day so that the American public could read it … explaining it to your voters and your constituents, standing behind it and then voting for it in two weeks,” Kennedy continued. “They didn’t do that. When if they can’t get what they want doing it the way they want to do it, Republicans will just fall back and do what they can by manipulating the rules and forcing things through without the public understanding the consequences of them.”
The bill, which passed in the House 217 to 213, will now head to the Senate, where Kennedy says Majority Leader Mitch McConnell will have his work cut out for him.
“McConnell has got a very delicate balancing act that he’s going to have to try to maneuver through, and I don’t doubt for a second that he is capable of doing so,” Kennedy said, “but I think that that bill … you can’t moderate all that much.”
To hear Rep. Joe Kennedy III’s full interview with Boston Public Radio, click on the audio player above.
