Trump Plans To Quickly Issue Executive Orders On Obamacare

President-elect Donald Trump plans to issue executive orders related to Obamacare as soon as he takes office, Vice President-elect Mike Pence told House Republicans on Wednesday morning.

Pence conveyed that message in a closed-door meeting during a visit to Capitol Hill and spoke about it at a press conference afterward, but he didn’t elaborate on what that would entail, since it will be up to the Republican-controlled Congress to dismantle the law that passed when Democrats controlled Congress.

“The American people have spoken,” Pence said. “They want to see us repeal and replace Obamacare.”

Mr. Trump’s advisers Kellyanne Conway, Stephen Miller, Rick Dearborn and his incoming White House chief of staff Reince Priebus attended the meeting, according to a source in the room.

Some lawmakers exiting the meeting were discussing a possible February 20 deadline to send Mr. Trump a bill that would repeal the healthcare law, but AshLee Strong, spokeswoman to Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wisconsin, disputed that date.

Asked if Republicans plan to pass a repeal bill immediately but delay its effective date for a few years until a replacement plan is developed, she said, “That’s incorrect. Our goal is to provide relief from this law as soon as possible, and we have not detailed a hard deadline.”

Pence said that the “first order or business” for the new administration would be to repeal and replace Obamacare. Pence and Ryan, however, emphasized that they did not want to “pull the rug out from under” Americans who were dependent on the program.

“We don’t want people to be caught with nothing,” Ryan said.