Fox's Newt Gingrich Claims GOP Health Care Plan Isn't Being “Rammed Through” Congress

Right-Wing Media Complained About The (Much Slower) Speed The ACA Was Passed Through Congress

Written by Media Matters Staff

Published

On Fox & Friends, Newt Gingrich claimed that the Republican health care plan, the American Health Care Act (AHCA), is going through Congress “the opposite of the way they rammed through Obamacare.” For years, conservative media figures, including Gingrich himself, complained that Democrats attempted to “ram through” the Affordable Care Act (ACA), even though the Senate held years of bipartisan hearings and the House “held 79 hearings over the course of a year, heard from 181 witnesses and accepted 121 amendments.”

The AHCA, on the other hand, was introduced publicly only on March 6, and the House has held “no public hearings, no testimony from experts, and no public debate.” The latest revision of the bill, which the House is scheduled to vote on in a matter of hours, has not been scored by the Congressional Budget Office, though a scoring of the previous iteration of the law found that the law would cause 24 million people to lose or forgo insurance by 2026. Some lawmakers who will be voting on the bill have, as recently as last night, still not read the legislation. From the May 4 edition of Fox News’ Fox & Friends:

AINSLEY EARHARDT (CO-HOST): Are you suggesting that the Republicans actually read what was in the bill?

NEWT GINGRICH: Oh, look, there are a lot of people who know what’s in the bill. In fact, there’s --

EARHARDT: No, I’m saying remember, [then-House Speaker] Nancy Pelosi said let's pass it, let’s don’t read it, let’s pass it, and then we'll read it and decide what needs to change?

GINGRICH: Oh, OK. Well, this has been the opposite of the way they rammed through Obamacare. This thing has now been drawn out so long, so many experts have read it and taken it apart, so many people have written about it, that I think, actually, members today will probably know more about the bill than they could have possibly have known a month ago.