Rand Paul

There are those who insist Republicans must act as a team to repeal Obamacare. I agree — if the topic is repeal. Every Republican has run on repealing Obamacare for seven years, and all but one voted for clean repeal in 2015.

Now we have a president who will sign it and is asking for us to send the same repeal bill to his desk, one that repeals with a two-year window to work with. We also have a majority leader who has said he will bring this vote to the Senate floor.

I’m encouraged by the fact that the original bill, which did not keep our promises to repeal, is dead. It’s a great step forward that we plan to take up the 2015 repeal bill instead.

Now it’s time to act on the things our team has stood for.

I watched my colleagues campaign on repeal. I watched them vote on it in 2015. Now I’m calling for them to keep their promises, stick to the principles they ran on and voted on, and end the harm Obamacare has done to our health care system.

OUR VIEW

The Obamacare repeal fiasco

The previous Senate bill kept the majority of the Obamacare taxes and spending, and it had a $200 billion bailout for insurance companies.

The 2015 clean repeal is far better; it simply offers repeal and a two-year window to fix our broken system.

The burden is now on those who promised to repeal Obamacare to keep their word. I was keeping mine when I opposed a bill that did not repeal it, and I’m keeping mine now.

I will vote for less than what I want. I will compromise on how much repeal we can get, as long as it is not coupled with massive new spending and bailouts.

For those who’ve been saying “join the team,” I say I’m right here, holding up each and every one of the promises every member of my caucus made to repeal. I’m looking at every one of the dozens of votes my “team” cast when President Obama was in office to repeal.

Let’s do what the team promised.

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., an ophthalmologist, serves on the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee.