Rep. Phil Gingrey (R-GA) said Thursday he voted against the Paul Ryan budget “because it left the enormous Obamacare taxes in place.”
Gingrey, the chairman of the GOP Doctors Caucus and a leading health care voice in the conference, was a single-issue voter Thursday, just ahead of the third anniversary of the enactment of the Affordable Care Act. He also voted against the stopgap measure to fund the government, lamenting that it continues to fund the health care reform law.
“Obamacare is bad fiscal policy, a nightmare for patients, and a drag on the economy,” Gingrey said in a statement to TPM. “Based on this grim reality, I have opposed the continuing resolution because it does not defund Obamacare and — consistent with this position — I voted against the Ryan budget because it left the enormous Obamacare taxes in place.”
The Ryan budget calls for the repeal of Obamacare but assumes the deficit reduction from the law’s substantial Medicare provider cuts and new taxes on high-income people and businesses.
Gingrey was one of just 10 House Republicans to vote against the Ryan budget — he voted for it last year even though it also included the new revenues from Obamacare tax hikes.
“As we mark the third anniversary of the health care law,” he said, “small business owners, families and patients are beginning to feel its impact.”
Gingrey isn’t the only Republican congressman to make that observation.
“We’re not done. We must repeal Obamacare — including the associated taxes, which the Ryan budget leaves intact by assuming the enactment of tax reform later on,” Rep. Paul Broun (R-GA), a 2014 Senate candidate, wrote Tuesday in a New York Times op-ed.
Broun also voted against the Ryan budget Thursday.
Sahil Kapur
Sahil Kapur is a congressional reporter for TPM. He previously covered politics and public policy for numerous publications including The Guardian and The Huffington Post. He can be reached at sahil [at] talkingpointsmemo.com.
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