GOP Lawmaker Tells Republicans To ‘Put Up Or Shut Up’ On Health Care Law

After blindly voting to repeal the health care law last month, several GOP lawmakers are waking up to the actual consequences of their vote. The Washington Post’s Greg Sargent caught another GOP lawmaker, Rep. Richard Hanna (NY), questioning the party rhetoric. Going “way off the national Republican Party’s message” in an interview with the Auburn Citizen, Hanna dismissed the health care repeal as “ceremonial.” Noting that Republicans have “complained for two years” without offering “viable” alternatives, he called on the GOP to finally “put up or shut up” on health care:

HANNA: I didn’t like the format. But those were the votes. That was the opportunity I was given. I had to vote up or down. So the idea to repeal it without reforming what is already here is not something I look forward to. But they did that…This in many ways was looked at as kind of a ceremonial vote. Because let’s face it, the Senate isn’t going to approve it, and the President of course isn’t. They’ve complained for two years about this health care bill. They’ve offered alternatives, but they’re not alternatives that are in many ways viable. Well, now they have to put up the goods. They have to say “here’s what we’re presenting, here’s why it will work…Let’s see what they do. I say give them a chance. Let the Republican party put up or shut up.

Watch it:

GOP Rep. Sean Duffy (WI) expressed the same concerns, recently admitting that “I wasn’t gonna vote for” the repeal until leadership assured him it’d be replaced with “our ideas.” However, as the Wonk Room’s Igor Volsky notes, if the GOP offers the health care ideas that they pledged to, they will basically be reinstating the exact law they voted to repeal last month.