Sen. Lee puts the establishment's RINOcare lies on full display

On his radio show Wednesday evening, Conservative Review Editor-in-Chief Mark Levin interviewed Senator Mike Lee, R-Utah, about a recent conversation the lawmaker had with the Senate parliamentarian. The discussion: whether or not Obamacare’s regulations could be repealed via reconciliation, which only needs a simply majority to pass.

As previously reported by the Washington Examiner, Lee says that he was told by the parliamentarian (who interprets the rules of the Senate) that, despite claims from House leadership, the current “repeal and replace” legislation could do much more to undo Obamacare's harmful mandates — if so desired.

Listen:

“I honestly believe that the Republican establishment does not want to repeal the entirety of Obamacare,” Levin said. “I think you have Republican governors … who like the expanded Medicaid, so they’ve already sold out. There’s a lot of that going on.”

As it stands now, the current RINOcare version would repeal several taxes and mandates, but it leaves in place the major regulations that are the primary drivers of America’s skyrocketing health insurance premiums. One of the major reasons that these have been left in place, GOP leaders have said, is that the Byrd Rule in the Senate would prohibit them from repealing them in a budget bill.

But this doesn’t appear to be the case, Sen. Mike Lee says, who says he found out in his meeting with the parliamentarian that nobody from leadership so much as asked how much of Obamacare could be gutted in the budget process.

“She pointed out that it’s not necessarily true what we’ve been told [by leadership],” Lee said.

“I think this is very distressing,” Sen. Lee concluded. “Because a whole lot of congressmen have been told a whole lot of times that this is the best we can do under the Senate’s reconciliation rules. And it’s not true.”