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Stefanik wants three-year health care repeal and replacement process

U.S. Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-Willsboro (Photo provided)

The repeal and replacement of President Barack Obama’s health care reform legislation should be a multi-year transparent process that ensures no one is left without coverage, said U.S. Rep. Elise Stefanik.

“It would be a three-year window. Those who have signed up on Obamacare, we will not pull the rug out from under them,” she said in a telephone interview on Friday.

The position could put her at odds with President-elect Donald Trump, who has called for repealing and replacing the Affordable Care Act, also known as “Obamacare,” “essentially simultaneously.”

Stefanik said colleagues in the Tuesday Group, a caucus of more than 60 moderate Republicans who elected her co-chairwoman this week, share her concern about the necessity of a well thought-out replacement plan.

“Over the past two weeks we have been ensuring that we further flesh out the replacement package as a part of dealing with Obamacare over the coming year,” she said.

On Friday, Stefanik voted in favor of a budget bill that includes a measure that established the procedure to approve legislation to repeal by simple majority votes in the House and Senate, and prevents a filibuster in the Senate.

The legislation passed the House largely along party lines, with nine Republicans and 189 Democrats voting against it.

Rep. John Katko, R-Camillus, who voted against the overall bill, said he did so because “no clear replacement plan” has been proposed.

“I believe before this flawed law is repealed, a viable plan must be ready to replace it,” he said in a press release.

Stefanik, although she did not vote against the budget bill, agrees that a replacement plan is essential.

“I am a member that believes we need to have a multi-year window before a repeal goes into effect — to set a time horizon to pass replacement packages out of committee in the public with feedback from constituents,” she said.

The replacement plan should include prohibiting insurance companies from rejecting coverage because of pre-existing conditions, and allowing young adults to stay on their parents’ health plans, she said.

Stefanik said Congress should not “pull the rug out from individuals who have signed up for Obamacare, of which I am one of.”

Stefanik said when she took office in 2015, she enrolled in Obamacare instead of accepting the congressional health plan, and she does not accept a subsidy.

“That is a commitment I made when I was running in 2014,” she said.

(Editor’s note: Four daily newspapers in the North Country — the Enterprise, Post-Star of Glens Falls, Watertown Daily Times and Press-Republican of Plattsburgh — are sharing content to better cover New York’s 21st Congressional District.)

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