February 24, 2017 12:28 PM UTC

Coffman: "Effective date" of Obamacare repeal will be "about two years out" due to negotiations with industry and Democrats

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• by: Jason Salzman

(Note that this was BEFORE Coffman said he would not vote for repeal without a replacement – Promoted by Colorado Pols)

U.S. Rep. Ken Buck (R-CO) made headlines after he told constituents this week that it could take several years for Republicans to come up with an Obamacare replacement and, when they unveil their plan, it will “leave some people behind, one way or the other,” as first reported by the Colorado Independent.

But Buck isn’t the only Colorado Republican to speculate that replacing Obamacare will take years.

U.S. Rep. Mike Coffman (R-CO) told a conservative radio host last month that “it will be about two years” before Obamacare is repealed.

“We are voting on a repeal — yes. And it will be to those tax and spending parts that the Democrats cannot filibuster in the Senate, but it will be about two years out will be the effective date of the repeal,” Coffman told KNUS’ Jimmy Sengenberger Jan. 7 (at 39 min 45 seconds). “And what the Democrats are advancing –and the press is falling in line with them on — is that somehow we’re erasing everything — that what the repeal does is, the next day, it’s all wiped out. That’s not true.”

Coffman said Republicans have the difficult task in front of them of negotiating with Democrats over what the Obamacare replacement will look like.

“We have to negotiate a replacement with the Democrats,” Coffman told Sengenberger. “And why we have to negotiate a replacement with the Democrats is because of the fact that all of those insurance regulation parts of Obamacare can be filibustered by the Democrats. And they have committed to do so. So that means it’s going to take 60 votes to bring that part of Obamacare to the floor. And so we’re going to have to negotiate with them on what that looks like. And so that will take time.”

Coffman did not say whether people will lose their health insurance under the GOP Obamacare replacement, but after his Jan. 7 statement above, in fact in multiple subsequent interviews, including a Feb. 17 radio appearance, he said that “nothing will be repealed unless it’s concurrently replaced.”

Working with the “insurance industry” on a replacement will be time consuming, said Coffman.

“The fact is that the insurance industry has to price this risk,” said Coffman. “We don’t want to throw a wrench into the market and have people suffer more than they have already suffered, unfairly. They have certainly suffered under Obamacare. It has helped some people. But it has hurt a lot of people. And so, we want policies that help everybody, you know, and don’t help some people at the expense of others.”