Boehner: Republicans won't repeal and replace Obamacare 'They’re basically going to fix the flaws and put a more conservative box around it,' Boehner said.

Former House Speaker John Boehner predicted on Thursday that a full repeal and replace of Obamacare is “not what’s going to happen” and that Republicans will instead just make some fixes to the health care law.

Boehner, who retired in 2015 amid unrest among conservatives, said at an Orlando healthcare conference that GOP lawmakers were too optimistic in their talk of quickly repealing and then replacing Obamacare.


“They’ll fix Obamacare, and I shouldn’t have called it repeal and replace because that’s not what’s going to happen. They’re basically going to fix the flaws and put a more conservative box around it,” Boehner said.

The former speaker’s frank comments capture the conundrum that many Republicans find themselves in as they try to deliver on pledges to axe Obamacare but struggle to coalesce around an alternative.

Republican lawmakers across the country this week are facing angry constituents at town halls worried that Obamacare will be yanked away without a suitable replacement.

President Donald Trump has said in recent days that he will release a plan by early to mid-March on how the administration plans to move forward on repeal-and-replace.

But so far, no clear path has emerged.

Earlier in the panel discussion, Boehner said he “started laughing” when Republicans started talking about moving lightning fast on repeal and then coming up with an alternative.

"In the 25 years that I served in the United States Congress, Republicans never, ever, one time agreed on what a health care proposal should look like. Not once,” Boehner said. “And all this happy talk that went on in November and December and January about repeal, repeal, repeal—yeah, we'll do replace, replace—I started laughing, because if you pass repeal without replace, first, anything that happens is your fault. You broke it.”

Boehner added that he has told Republican leaders that unless a repeal is packaged with a replacement, GOP lawmakers would not likely reach a consensus about an alternative to Obamacare.

"And secondly, as I told some of the Republican leaders when they asked, I said, if you pass repeal without replace you'll never pass replace, because they will never ever agree on what the bill should be. Perfect always becomes the enemy of the good,” Boehner said.

Boehner said what Republicans ultimately come up with could share a lot of the same qualities with Obamacare.

"Most of the Affordable Care Act, in the framework, is going to stay there: coverage for kids up to age 26, covering those with preexisting conditions. All of that's going to be there. Subsidies for those who can't afford it, who aren't on Medicaid, who I call the working poor, subsidies for them will be there," Boehner said.

"What will be different is that CMS will not dictate to every single state how the plan's going to run. And if the state wants to run an exchange, the state can run an exchange. The states will control the policies that are offered like they control every other insurance product offered in their states,” he added.

