House conservatives — anxious that the GOP’s effort to end Obamacare is getting bogged down in the fight over what a replacement should look like — are plotting a major push to repeal the law immediately without simultaneously approving an alternative.

The House Freedom Caucus and a number of Republican Study Committee members this week will urge Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and his lieutenants to forgo their plan to add replacement provisions to a repeal bill, dubbed “repeal-plus.” Instead, they want to approve the same stand-alone repeal bill that Congress sent to President Barack Obama in 2016.


“Instead of continuing to spin our wheels, we need a starting place,” said Republican Study Committee Chairman Mark Walker (R-N.C.) in a brief interview Monday evening. “What the Senate passed in October 2015 is the best starting place. … Let’s get that on that on the books; then we can move quickly after that to put in replacement components.”

The stand by several dozen hard-liners comes as House GOP leaders were planning to outline the main planks of a replacement blueprint at a series of informational sessions with rank and file members Tuesday and Thursday. The position is at odds with GOP leadership’s latest strategy to load up a spring repeal bill — which could pass both chambers on party lines using a tool called reconciliation — with as many replacement provisions as possible.

The split in the conference s shows that even after six years of demanding repeal — and a month of unified government — Republicans are still struggling to get on the same page on how to do it. Some are urging patience and deliberation, while others are increasingly restless the all-GOP Congress risks blowing an opportunity to kill the health care law unless they move quickly. President Donald Trump has sent conflicting signals, initially saying he wanted Congress to act immediately but then cautioning the process could take all year.

Conservatives say they’re not necessarily opposed to all of leadership's replacement provisions but worry that adding them to the reconciliation bill will drag the process out for weeks and months.

“Functionally, [our idea] eliminates some of the excuses for our Senate colleagues; if they voted on this then, there is no reason they can’t vote on it now,” said House Freedom Caucus Chairman Mark Meadows (R-N.C.). “I think a lot of people are looking to some of the policy debates to be an excuse not to vote on repealing the Affordable Care Act.”

Conservatives say they could have as many as 50 House Republicans who agree with them and are shopping the idea around this week in an effort to build more support.

It's unclear, however, whether they would vote against a leadership-sponsored package that adds replacement provisions to the repeal bill. Two GOP leadership sources said the push from conservatives would not likely change the current strategy to package repeal and replacement provisions together.

House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) is hosting three Obamacare “breakout” sessions with lawmakers this week to educate them on changes to Medicaid, health care tax credits and health savings accounts — all provisions that GOP leadership wants to tuck into the repeal bill.

There is, however, a lingering fear among House conservatives that Senate Republicans will get cold feet on repeal and end up doing nothing at all.

“My concern is [a repeal-replace bill] will give some lackadaisical senator a reason to vote against it,” said Freedom Caucus member Trent Franks (R-Ariz.). “My concern is the entire repeal is in mortal danger. ... There may be some people who will get weak-kneed.”

Rep. Jeff Duncan (R-S.C.) said Monday that if Congress doesn’t pass a repeal bill now, conservatives could lose momentum as lawmakers change gears to take up other must-pass priorities, including funding the government this spring.

The proposal to pass the 2015 repeal bill again without a replacement gained steam during the conservative retreat in New York last week, when more than 50 conservative Freedom Caucus and Republican Study Committee members met with the conservative Heritage Foundation to talk policy priorities. Following those meetings, lawmakers said they expected Heritage to back their stand-alone repeal, too — which could help bolster conservative support for the strategy.

The House Freedom Caucus, meanwhile, took an official position Monday night to vote only for a bill that looks “at least as good” as the 2015 repeal bill. Asked what that meant, group members said they simply want to pass the same bill again — then come back with a replacement quickly afterward.

Group members, and some RSC members, plan to talk to GOP leadership about the idea this week, according to several sources.

Meadows argued that enacting repeal right away would force more people to the table to negotiate on an Obamacare replacement.

“It’s our hope that in doing so it will bring some others along for a replacement bill once they understand that it has been repealed,” Meadows said. “That you get some Democrats and certainly more moderate Republicans to work in earnest with replacement.”

Many Senate Republicans are likely to throw cold water on the idea. Senate Health Education, Labor and Pensions Chairman Lamar Alexander, one of the top Republicans writing the repeal bill, said no one in that chamber has even floated that as an option.

“If we just passed what we did in 2015? Nobody is seriously proposing that, because it doesn’t have any replacement,” the Tennessee Republican said.

Moderate and centrist House Republicans will have the same sorts of worries. They’re getting pummeled by progressive protesters at town hall meetings, with constituents aggressively imploring them to protect the Affordable Care Act.

Burgess Everett and Jennifer Haberkorn contributed to this report.