Scott Walker goes after fellow Republicans in health care pitch

Wisconsin Gov. and Republican presidential candidate Scott Walker presents his health care plan Tuesday during a factory visit in Minnesota. (Photo: Jim Mone/AP)

Republican presidential candidate Scott Walker on Tuesday announced the first major policy initiative of his campaign: repealing and replacing the nation’s health care law. But his remarks were as much a salvo against the new GOP-led Congress as they were an actual plan to change America’s health care system.

In a primary field packed with 17 Republicans, many of whom have spent the entirety of the 2016 campaign trying to out-conservative the others, Walker has consistently touted his aggressive and successful record of reshaping Wisconsin’s politics and budget since first becoming its governor in 2011.

And it’s clear Walker believes that contrasting his record with the inaction of Congress is his best shot at breaking through with Republican primary voters, who have four current senators and one former senator to choose from.

The cornerstone of the health care plan Walker announced in Minnesota is to send legislation to Congress on “day one” of a Walker administration to repeal the Affordable Care Act, which has extended insurance coverage to 7 million previously uninsured Americans. To encourage Congress to pass it, the Wisconsin Republican also threatened to issue an executive order to force all legislators and staff onto the law’s exchanges, even though that’s already enshrined in current law and most members are already insured through Obamacare.

“We were told by Republican leaders during the campaigns last year that we just needed a Republican Senate to be elected to repeal Obamacare,” Walker reminded voters. “Well, here we sit. Both chambers of the United States Congress have been controlled since January by Republicans, and yet there’s not a bill on the president’s desk to repeal Obamacare.

“On my very first day as president of the United States, I will send legislation to the Congress to once and for all repeal Obamacare entirely,” Walker continued.

Of course, passage of such a bill would probably require a filibuster-proof Republican majority (60 votes) in the Senate, which seems unlikely to be attained in 2016. To date, the GOP-led House has voted more than 50 times to repeal Obamacare, and the new Republican Senate unsuccessfully voted as recently as July to do the same.

The reality of the vote counts in Congress — and the continued presidency of Barack Obama — has prevented GOP leaders in Washington from doing more, while governors like Walker can boast about refusing to set up exchanges in their own states or accept the expansion of Medicaid.

According to the Kaiser Family Health Foundation, the refusal of Walker and 18 other governors to expand the federal health care program to their poorest citizens has created a coverage gap of nearly 4 million Americans.

“We got results while still staying true to our common-sense conservative principles,” Walker said of rejecting Medicaid expansion outright, while praising fellow GOP presidential contenders Rick Perry of Texas and Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, who also rejected expansion in their states.

“I’m willing to stand up against anyone — including members of my own party — to get the job done. We’re not intimidated,” Walker declared.

Walker at the Iowa State Fair earlier this week. (Photo: Al Drago/CQ Roll Call via Getty Images)

Beating up on a Congress that has an abysmal approval rating hovering below 20 percent and is led by establishment Republicans is one way for a presidential hopeful to ingratiate himself with a conservative base that’s otherwise enamored by frontrunner Donald Trump. But such campaign tactics aren’t winning Walker friends in Washington.

“The House repealed Obamacare again in February, but it remains bottled up in the Senate. If the governor waves his wand and magically installs 60 Republicans in the United States Senate, we can begin to make real progress,” said one senior GOP Congressional aide. “Until then, it’s still an uphill climb. The large group of former GOP leadership staffers he now employs should be able to explain this basic reality to him.”

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s office has a policy not to provide comment on political speeches and did not do so for this story, though McConnell already has given assurances to Senate conservatives that he will attempt to use a budget maneuver that does not require 60 votes to repeal the health care law.

Walker’s health care plan would provide tax credits to Americans without employer-provided health insurance coverage based on their age, as opposed to their income and number of dependents, like Obamacare. It also would increase the limits for annual tax-free contributions to Health Savings Accounts (HSAs) for individuals and families and allow Americans to shop for insurance plans across state lines. Under the Affordable Care Act, Americans must enroll for plans either in state-established exchanges or through the federal exchange if their state did not opt into the program.

Walker cited House Ways and Means Committee Chairman and fellow Wisconsinite Paul Ryan as one of his potential partners in Congress, as well as conservative Rep. Tom Price of Georgia and Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah.

Walker also suggested he would “light a fire” to get other members of Congress to join his fight by issuing an executive order “that gets rid of the ‘special deal’” for Congress and ensures that all lawmakers are enrolled in health care through the national health care law he seeks to repeal.

“The great way to motivate the Congress … is to make sure they have to live under the same Obamacare rules you do,” Walker said.

It’s worth noting that the “special deal” Walker is referring to is subsidies provided by employers — in this case, the government — which all Americans are guaranteed to under the law. Those subsidies were accidentally taken away from members and staffers in an amendment to the law that actually already forces them to obtain health care through the Obamacare exchanges. Even the Republican who conceived of the amendment has rejected the notion that employer subsidies for Congressional members and staffs are a special carveout for Congress.

Continuing to paint Congress as not playing by its own rules, however, fits the narrative Walker is trying to promote about why a conservative governor is more viable with the base than a senator. The question is whether such an argument will be enough to boost him in the polls against opponents like Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, who, like other senators, will get his own chance to show off his toughness in September, when another government shutdown looms.