{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["http://flores.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=398898", "Daily Caller: EXCLUSIVE: GOP Lawmaker Confident Americans Will Quickly See Health Care Improvements In 2017", "2016-12-18", "2016", "2016-12", "Republican", "House", "TX", "Bill Flores", "F000461", "flores.house.gov", null, null, "legacy", "By: Juliegrace BrufkeGOP lawmakers are gearing up to overturn a number of President Barack Obama\u2019s policies in 2017, and Republican Study Committee Chairman Bill Flores is confident Americans will quickly see improvements in their health care options after GOP leaders repeal Obamacare early next year.\r\nCongress is slated to move on repealing Obamacare within its\u00a0first week back, with the intention of getting a bill to President-elect Donald Trump\u2019s desk as soon as he takes office. While Republicans are still determining what its replacement should look like, Flores said he anticipates the repeal to have an almost immediate impact.\r\n\u201cI think the replacement will take a few more weeks to figure out what that looks like \u2014 the good news is the Republican Study Committee already has an Obamacare replacement that has more cosponsors than anybody else in the House,\u201d he told The Daily Caller News Foundation. \u201cSo, we can use our model, Tom Price has a great bill, also if you look at the \u2018A Better Way\u2019 agenda there\u2019s the outline of a replacement in there \u2014 so among those sort of three of the more noteworthy plans we\u2019ll find a solution in there.\u201d\r\nThe timing of the replacement remains up in the air, with a number of Senate Republicans calling for a three-year window while some\u00a0House conservatives would like to see it completed during the 115th Congress.\r\n\u201cWhat I would say is \u2018the end date for today\u2019s Obamacare needs to be about three years post repeal, so let\u2019s say we do the repeal vote early in January and the president signs in on Jan. 20,\u201d he told TheDCNF, noting that\u2019s what he would advise leadership to do. \u201cIt ought to end January of 2019. Now, over the next three-to-six months ought\u00a0to come up with a replacement, and the replacement ought to be fully implemented as of the end date of Obamacare, so Jan. 1 of 2020 would be the full implementation date.\u201d\r\nFlores said if Republicans are doing their jobs right, their plan will both increase access and bring down costs.\r\n\u201cIf we actually do those things, then\u00a0we will cover\u00a0more people, because people have better access to health care and they\u2019ll have more affordability, so they\u2019ll want to buy it,\u201d he said. \u201cI can see a situation where we come up with a plan where we have more people with health care and they really like the health care they\u2019re getting versus this coverage they don\u2019t like today that they can\u2019t afford.\u201d\r\nRepublicans have vowed to keep the popular provisions from the Affordable Care Act in place \u2014 such as allowing dependents to stay on their parents plan until the age of 26 and requiring insurers to cover preexisting condition \u2014 but will eliminate language including the individual and employer mandate. Flores said he is open to working across the aisle on the replacement plan if they bring ideas to the table that won\u2019t increase premiums.\r\n\u201cI think what\u2019s incumbent upon us is to give the Democrats a seat at the table, and if they do raise good ideas to incorporate those ideas. For the life of me, I don\u2019t know what they are yet, but if they do come up with some, let\u2019s look at it,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd if you can come up with bipartisan solution, I think it\u2019s always better than having a single-party solution, but again at the end of the day, the American people have an expectation of us and we can\u2019t let bipartisanship dilute that expectation.\u201d\r\nBoth Vice President-elect Mike Pence and Rep. Tom Price of Georgia, who was recently tapped to serve as the secretary if Health and Human Service next year, served as RSC chairmen in the past, so the group will likely have an open flow of communication with the administration.\r\nNorth Carolina Rep. Mark Walker is expected to soon take over the group, but Flores will sit on its steering committee, which is tasked with providing strategic guidance in the direction the RSC takes.\r\n\u201cThe good news is we\u2019ll have all these relationships with the administration, so we can talk candidly about how we can make things work really smoothly in Congress and where we might need help from the administration to encourage people to get on board,\u201d he said.", 1, "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z", "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["http://flores.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=398898"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 0.8420301601290703, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}