Repeal and delay of Obamacare simply means: no repeal and pretending to delay.
Why repealing ObamaCare will be a trainwreck for the GOP
Unfortunately for the ObamaCare haters, the GOP can't agree on what to replace the health reform law with. The solution they seem to be coalescing around is to pass a repeal right away, and claim a political victory, but delay the repeal from actually taking effect for a while. As in, a long while: "House conservatives want a two-year fuse for the repeal," Sahil Kapur reported in Bloomberg recently. "Republican leaders prefer at least three years, and there has been discussion of putting it off until after the 2020 elections."
In the annals of American health policy, there's a legendary bit of absurdity remembered as the "doc fix." In 1997, Congress tried to save money by passing a formula that automatically cut a bit of what Medicare pays doctors each year. But they screwed the formula up, and in 2002, cut doctors' reimbursements way more than originally intended.
So the doc fix went on and on and the can got kicked down the road 17 times between 2003 and 2014. The old hands in the Republican party knew what they were doing with their cynical and cowardly “repeal and delay” strategy:
You can see where this is going: The GOP has had six years to figure out an ObamaCare replacement. If they haven't settled on one by now, there's no reason to think they will in another two or three or four years. Once their delay runs out, if they're still in power, the Republicans will just have to pass another delay. If the Democrats are back in power, they'll want to cancel the repeal outright, but the GOP won't let that happen. The compromise position will also be to pass another delay.
The ObamaCare repeal will become the new doc fix.
Yep. So then what? Obamacare becomes Trumpcare as the much-needed fixes get implemented in the interim and they gloat about how they fixed Obamacare? I’ll take it.
These people have no shame so anything is possible. They know how to spin and lie to get themselves elected, I will give them that. But I will take repeal and delay if it means 20 million people don’t lose access to life-saving health care.