House Speaker Paul Ryan emphasized that the GOP plan is narrowly tailored so it can win passage in a closely divided Senate. | John Shinkle/POLITICO Ryan: This is the last chance to repeal Obamacare

House Speaker Paul Ryan said Thursday that Republicans in Congress are facing their last, best chance to end Obamacare.

“This is the closest we will ever get to repealing and replacing Obamacare,” he said at a news conference, after delivering a 20-minute PowerPoint presentation to pitch GOP leadership’s health care overhaul.


Ryan emphasized that the GOP plan — which has faced strong resistance from conservative lawmakers for what they say amounts to an insufficient dismantling of the law — is narrowly tailored so it can win passage in a closely divided Senate. Through a procedure known as reconciliation, Republicans can secure Senate passage of the bill with a simple majority, rather than the typical 60-vote threshold most major legislation must clear.

But reconciliation rules sharply restrict the provisions that Republicans might otherwise include when revamping the health care system.

“It really comes down to a binary choice,” Ryan said. That choice? The current system or the House proposal, which he said can’t be changed dramatically or it risks getting blocked in the Senate.

Rep. Justin Amash (R-Mich.), one of the plan's conservative detractors, immediately rejected Ryan's argument. "'Binary choice' fallacy is a tool partisans on both sides use to quash policy debate and avoid difficult job of persuading and legislating," he tweeted shortly after Ryan's news conference.

Ryan said there’s been “a lot of confusion” among conservative groups and lawmakers who would like to see a long wish list of conservative policy ideas in the House bill. But he said they would be taken up later, in separate legislation that would then require a 60-vote majority to pass the Senate. Doing so would require the support of at least eight Democrats, an unlikely feat in a sharply polarized Congress.

Ryan: This is the last chance to repeal Obamacare Speaker Ryan talks about Obamacare on Thursday.