Report: Murkowski says reopening Obamacare repeal debate is a waste of time

As if Congress needed any more dysfunction, Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz is reportedly pushing for Congress to reopen the bitter fight over repealing the Affordable Care Act, according to a report by The Hill. The runner up for the Republican presidential nomination (who shut down the government in 2013 in an attempt to force President Barack Obama to defund his key legislation) said he believes Republicans can rally around the repeal.

“I don’t think leadership is interested in going down this road again until we can get 50 votes and so we need to do the hard work of bringing the rest of the conference together,” Cruz said Wednesday. “I think we’re still quite close.”

And what does Alaska’s U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, one of key GOP votes that defeated last year’s multiple efforts to haphazardly undo the legislation, think?

“I don’t think we should be spending time trying to do repeal and replace of ObamaCare,” Murkowski told reporters, according to a report by The Hill.

Why it matters

Republicans have cooled on efforts to repeal Obamacare, instead settling on the repeal of the individual mandate (by far the least popular part of the legislation) through the tax bill. Today’s developments aren’t likely to change that, but Murkowski’s comments are an affirmation that her position against a full-scale repeal of Obamacare without an adequate replacement hasn’t changed.