Ryan budget repeals ObamaCare

Rep. Paul Ryan’s final House budget includes a full repeal of ObamaCare. [READ RYAN’S BUDGET PROPOSAL.]

Ryan did not lay out the parameters of a replacement, or say what would happen to those who have already obtained coverage under the new healthcare law.

{mosads}But Ryan, seen as a future GOP White House hopeful, said the law was a “costly mistake” that needed to be replaced.

“The Path to Prosperity will strengthen our healthcare system by repealing ObamaCare,” Ryan wrote in the budget. “The healthcare law has been a costly mistake, so this plan calls for a full replacement. It clears the way for patient-centered reforms that will help increase access, improve quality, and lower costs.”

House Republican leaders for months have said they will produce an alternative to ObamaCare, but those plans appear to have stalled in the near-term, as there is little incentive for the GOP to risk backlash against a proposal in an election year while ObamaCare remains unpopular.

Three senior Senate Republicans, Richard Burr (N.C.), Tom Coburn (Okla.) and Orrin Hatch (Utah), have proposed a blueprint to serve as an alternative to ObamaCare, but House leadership has not embraced the plan.

Ryan said ObamaCare will “will create pressures that will eventually lead to a single-payer system in which the federal government determines how much healthcare Americans need and what kind of care they can receive.”

“This budget recommends repealing the architecture of this new law, which puts healthcare decisions into the hands of bureaucrats, and instead allowing Congress to pursue patient-centered healthcare reforms that actually bring down the cost of care by empowering consumers,” he wrote.

Repeal of ObamaCare remains unlikely, even if Republicans take the Senate this fall. They would still have to win the White House in 2016, and by that time, the Affordable Care Act will be so entrenched, that any repeal and replace strategy would constitute as radical a transformation of the healthcare industry as ObamaCare was.

Still, Republicans maintain that repealing ObamaCare is the primary goal.

“House Republicans will continue to work to repeal this law and protect families and small businesses from its harmful consequences,” Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said Monday in a statement.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) said Tuesday on “Fox and Friends” that he remains committed to repealing “every word” of the healthcare law, and said he believes voters will signal this to Washington by giving Republicans control of both chambers of Congress during the 2014 midterm elections.