House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., announces that he is abruptly pulling the troubled Republican health care overhaul bill off the House floor, short of votes and eager to avoid a political defeat for President Donald Trump and GOP leaders, on Friday, March 24, 2017. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

(CNSNews.com) - Get back to work on repealing -- really repealing -- and replacing Obamacare. That's the message to congressional Republicans from the leaders of several conservative groups on Friday.

"It is absolute suicide for the Republican Party to follow the course that they're embarking on right now," L. Brent Bozell III, the chairman of For America, told a conference call.



"All the studies show that premiums are going to go up. The Republican Party will own health care -- Paul Ryan and the Republican leadership in the Senate will own Obamacare, and national health care after this -- if they go down this road.”

Bozell said Republicans “could well lose the House and Senate in 2018” if they don’t rethink what they’re doing. “It will be a rout against Republicans.”

The repeal of Obamacare has been the GOP's priority for the past six years: it's the reason Republicans have gained seats in Congress and it's the primary reason that Donald Trump is president today, Bozell said.

"Donald Trump was elected because the American people are fed up with broken promises from Congress. They simply don't believe people will honor their words.”



Bozell called it “remarkable” that the Republican-led Congress is once again failing to honor its commitment to repeal and replace Obamacare.

Bozell also had a message for President Trump: “I also urge the president to rethink these attacks on The Freedom Caucus. Not only is he going to need the Freedom Caucus in virtually every single fight to come, but the irony is, that The Freedom Caucus is going to be his strongest supporters in the battles ahead.”

(Trump on Thursday tweeted: "The Freedom Caucus will hurt the entire Republican agenda if they don't get on the team, & fast. We must fight them, & Dems, in 2018!”)

On Tuesday, Republican leaders told a news conference that their resolve to repeal and replace Obamacare has never been stronger.

But House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) refused to set a deadline for the next attempt: “I won’t tell you the timeline, because we want to get it right,” Ryan said, following a meeting with the Republican conference.



“We had a very constructive meeting with our members. Some of those who were in the ‘no’ camp expressed a willingness to work on getting to yes and to making this work. We want to get it right."

But by Thursday, Ryan told reporters he shares President Trump's frustration with Freedom Caucus conservatives who say the bill advanced by Republican leaders failed to fully repeal Obamacare and did nothing to lower premiums.

"What I am encouraging our members to do is keep talking with each other until we can get the consensus to pass this bill," Ryan said on Thursday. "But it’s very understandable that the president is frustrated that we haven’t gotten to where we need to go, because this is something we all said we would do.”

On Friday, conservative leaders said “getting it right” means repealing the entire architecture of Obamacare, not just part of it. It is that architecture that is causing premiums to go up, said Mike Needham, CEO of Heritage Action for America.

“The Freedom Caucus is the only group on Capitol Hill right now standing with the American people,” said Ken Cuccinelli, the former Attorney General of Virginia, who was the first to bring a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of Obamacare. “And is it really too much to ask that they do what they said they were going to do?”

Cuccinelli, now president of Senate Conservatives Fund, also noted that repealing Obamacare “doesn’t repeal health care.” He said Obamacare is in the way of health care: “If nothing except repeal happened, America would be far better off.”

David Bozell, the president of For America, said the Republican leadership, in trying to ram through a flawed bill, is making the same mistake that Democrat Nancy Pelosi made when Obamacare was first passed, and that is “trying to slip a bill past the goalie.”

He said the current GOP leadership should have more respect for taxpayers by making their deliberations public and inclusive of all Republicans. He also made the point that presidents need to have their base engaged, not just to win elections, but also to get things accomplished.

(L. Brent Bozell III is the president of the Media Research Center, the parent organization of CNSNews.com.)