Health care remains the hottest issue in American politics right now. Republican senators are trying to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act but the process has hit a brick wall.
Nebraska Senator Ben Sasse supports the repeal and replace structure but says if there's not enough support of the current plan he's looking at the alternatives.
Seeing the writing on the wall, Sasse is proposing to first repeal Obamacare and then in a separate vote later on replace it with another health care option.
“I think it would be a more prudent legislative step to unbundle repeal and replace so I’ve been working with the president's senior team at the white house and this morning i sent the president a formal letter suggesting that if the senate is unsuccessful over the next 10 days in getting to a combined repeal and replace plan we should unbundle those two efforts,” said Sasse.
On Friday morning the president tweeted his support of the proposal writing, "If republican senators are unable to pass what they are working on now, they should immediately repeal and then replace at a later date.”
Under Sasse's plan if they were to repeal Obamacare first it wouldn't happen immediately, “We should put in place a 1-year delay before it would be effective, we should vote on repeal but not have it go in effect for a year so that families would have the certainly of knowing that their policy wasn't going to evaporate immediately.”
Sasse said he wasn't a fan of the way a group of Republican senators made this bill without more input he's looking for a more open process this time, “It hasn't been a transparent process and i would be in favor of a much more open much more public process. I’d like us to have a full hearing and debate process in public before the American people”.
So Sasse is also proposing to cancel the August recess lasting 26 working days and work on the replacement plan and have a result by Labor Day.
3 News Now asked if Sasse will hold any town halls on the health care proposals, and so far there isn’t one of the schedule.
