WASHINGTON – Politico reports that President-elect Donald Trump is planning to make repealing President Barack Obama's health care law right a top priority "out of the gate” come January 20, according to Vice President-elect Mike Pence.
Pence told “Fox News Sunday” that “Decisions have been made by the president-elect that he wants to focus out of the gate on repealing Obamacare and beginning the process of replacing Obamacare with the kind of free-market solutions that he campaigned on … From there, we will work on issues ranging from ending illegal immigration, reviving our economy through tax reform, rebuilding the military, restoring the infrastructure of this country.”
One piece of Obamacare that is of concern for convenience retailers are the new menu-labeling requirements set to take effect May 2017. Retailers with 20 or more locations must comply with FDA’s regulations requiring that all prepared food be labeled with caloric information. NACS has been working with Congress to reform these regulations in a commonsense way that works for different types of food retailers.
Meanwhile, U.S. Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) told ABC News that some congressional Democrats will not allow Trump to "repeal Dodd-Frank or the rules we’ve put in place to limit Wall Street," referring to the 2010 law that contains the Durbin Amendment on debit swipe fee reform. "They’re going to regret the day they try to repeal the [Affordable Care Act]," Schumer added.
Republican legislators generally take issue with Dodd-Frank, and Trump says that he plans to overhaul pieces of the law. House Financial Services Chairman Jeb Hensarling wants to move his legislation, the Financial Choice Act, from last Congress through the new 115th Congress. Hensarling’s bill calls for a full repeal of convenience industry-supported debit swipe fee reform.
Former U.S. Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA), co-author of the law with his namesake, said it will be interesting to see how Congress reacts to Trump’s spending plans, which he says may increase the deficit, The Hill reports.
“I’m gonna be watching to see whether the two sides switch positions on the deficit, and whether the Republicans become much less worried about it now that it’s Donald Trump’s deficit, and the Democrats become much more critical now that it’s not Barack Obama’s,” Frank said.