Kaitlan Collins Presses Republican Senator Who Says GOP Has a Healthcare Plan: ‘Can People See It?’

CNN’s Kaitlan Collins pushed Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-OH) for specifics on his claim that Republicans have a “plan” for healthcare whenever the government reopens.

Moreno joined Collins on The Source on Tuesday and Collins pressed the senator after he claimed Republicans have a “plan” to replace Obamacare. Collins noted Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) has recently called out her own party for not prioritizing healthcare costs or having a plan in place.

Democrats are currently at a standstill with Republicans amid the government shutdown, and are demanding an extension of Affordable Care Act subsidies in exchange for the seven Democratic votes necessary to pass a funding bill.

“Senator, you’re saying that Republicans do have a plan. What is that plan? Can people see it?” Collins asked Moreno as he called Obamacare a total “failure.”

“Well, we have to have [pharmacy benefit manager] reform, we have to look at the ways that we have a lot of waste, fraud, and abuse in the healthcare system. We have to let the marketplace work. There’s no transparency or competition. You look at some things like, for example, the Oklahoma City Surgery Center and what they’re doing. That’s really innovation in healthcare, more remote, having nurses be able to treat patients in a different way. The whole system can be looked at very holistically,” Moreno said, claiming Republicans would need three to four months to put together a comprehensive plan.

“I’m not defending Obamacare or the subsidies on that, but it has been 15 years. I know you’ve only been in the Senate — you’re new to Washington, relatively new, but some people may say, well, there’s been 15 years since Obamacare passed. We haven’t seen a Republican plan to replace it,” Collins said at one point.

“Well, [Barack] Obama was president for four years, President Trump was president for four years. And then, of course, [former President Joe] Biden came in and made everything objectively worse,” Moreno said as Collins jumped back in.

“In a very different situation. He only had two years of unified control of government,” Moreno shot back. “We got the most important bill done, which is tax relief for all Americans that stimulated our economy. It had not been for Covid, we would have been in a totally different situation had President Trump had a second term that was consecutive.”

Check out the exchange below:

KAITLAN COLLINS: Senator, you’re saying that Republicans do have a plan. What is that plan? Can people see it?

BERNIE MORENO: Absolutely. Well, we have to have PBM reform, we have to look at the ways that we have a lot of waste, fraud, and abuse in the healthcare system. We have to let the marketplace work. There’s no transparency or competition. You look at some things like, for example, the Oklahoma City Surgery Center and what they’re doing. That’s really innovation in healthcare, more remote, having nurses be able to treat patients in a different way. The whole system can be looked at very holistically, but it’s going to take three or four months to really bring a consensus to that plan. In the meantime, what are we gonna do? Keep the government closed for three or four months every time that we have a policy debate? This is nuts.

COLLINS: Okay, so is there a plan ready tomorrow, or you’re saying it’s going to take three to four months to coalesce around a plan?

MORENO: Look, we have different Republicans, for example, Sen. Rick Scott, that’s brilliant on this topic, that has a lot of amazing ideas, but yeah, of course we have to build consensus. This is not a one-man show that runs the United States Senate. We have to bring Republicans together. It should be bipartisan. I think the voters expect us to work together on difficult things, but we can’t have a gun to our head and have the government close and people suffering, not being able to feed their families because the Democrats think it’s good for them politically. And by the way, they set the expiration of these Biden era subsidies to be December 31st of ’25. They made EV subsidies to go through 2032 on luxury electric vehicles, but they chose to have these subsidies at ’25.

COLLINS: On healthcare, senator, what is someone who has open enrollment starting November 1st supposed to do in response to the idea that it would take three or four months to coalesce around a plan?

MORENO: Look, Obamacare is a total and complete disaster. Having the Covid-era stuff —

COLLINS: But what’s the Republicans’ plan to counter that is my question.

MORENO: I’m answering. Look, we can’t fix Obamacare in three months. What I’m telling you is that the Covid year of subsidies are a tiny fraction of any increase. The increase is happening because Obamcare is broken. It’s a complete abject failure. There isn’t a single Republican that voted for Obamacare. This is a Democrat plan. You should ask the next Democrat that you have on, what is your plan to fix your healthcare plan? Because it’s objectively terrible. We will bring competition to the marketplace. Absolutely increase transparency, we’ll have PBM reform. President Trump has done a ton to lower prescription drug prices. We’re gonna have most favored nation status. We can do it, but we need to put together a coalition to make that happen.

COLLINS: I’m not defending Obamacare or the subsidies on that, but it has been 15 years. I know you’ve only been in the Senate — you’re new to Washington, relatively new, but some people may say, well, there’s been 15 year since Obamacare passed. We haven’t seen a Republican plan to replace it.

MORENO: Well, Obama was president for four years, President Trump was president four years. And then, of course, Biden came in and made everything objectively worse. And by the way, you can’t defend Obama, because he’s in —

COLLINS: You’re acknowledging there was a Republican president in between those two Democrats who is now back in office.

MORENO: In a very different situation. He only had two years of unified control of government. We got the most important bill done, which is tax relief for all Americans that stimulated our economy. It had not been for Covid, we would have been in a totally different situation had President Trump had a second term that was consecutive. It would have been a very difference situation, but the Democrats had control of government during Biden and they did absolutely nothing about it. These are what they focused on was EV subsidies for millionaires. Even, by the way, foreign luxury electric vehicles, that’s what they made their priority. Why weren’t they last year, the year before, when Chuck Schumer was in charge, why weren’t the anticipating the fact that these subsidies were gonna end?

COLLINS: I think the question is just what’s going to happen now. Obviously, Republicans are in charge, and I think a lot of people have huge questions about what the future of healthcare is.

Watch above via CNN.