The same day Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Illinois) told CNN a compromise on the medical device excise tax could be a likely answer to government shutdown, Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-Maryland) said just the opposite to TheHill.com.
The takeaway from Durbin on CNN:
We can work on something, I believe, on the medical device tax. That was one of the proposals from Republicans, as long as we replace the revenue.
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But only if the rest of Obamacare is left on the table.
Meanwhile, Hoyer gave TheHill.com these three reasons why he doesn’t think the repeal will go through:
- Context. Dems don’t want to negotiate a 2010 healthcare law over a fiscal battle. “It’s an extraneous issue, and if you start this extraneous issue, then the next extraneous issue, where do you stop on extraneous issues?”
- It will add $30 billion to the defecit.
- “Hoyer argued that GOP leaders are wary of voting on the medical tax measure as a stand-alone bill for fear of a backlash from conservative groups that want to repeal, not improve, Obamacare.” At the end of the day, Hoyer said to The Hill he doesn’t think it’s enough for the radical right: “I’m not sure that, as a free-standing bill, they have the confidence that it wouldn’t be perceived by the radical right, that has no alternative other than to repeal the Affordable Care Act, that they would be for that,” he said. “But my sense is, there would be a good chance of that having a majority on the floor.”
A typical case of Obamacare-flavored rhetoric: not enough and too much.