WASHINGTON — Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, said this on Thursday evening following Senate passage of the Restoring Americans’ Health Care Freedom Reconciliation Act, a repeal of the unpopular Obamacare:

“The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, or ‘Obamacare,’ has completely failed to live up to its name.  President Obama repeatedly promised that ‘if you like your health care plan, you can keep it.’ Instead, millions of Americans were not protected when Obamacare was enacted, and their policies were canceled. President Obama also promised Americans they could keep their doctors. Instead, Americans buying plans on Obamacare's government-run ‘exchanges’ are discovering that the networks of providers are often narrower, with fewer choices.  Those promises were repeated by many of Obamacare's supporters and were named PolitiFact's 2013 Lie of the Year.

“And instead of the ‘Affordable Care Act’ making health care more affordable, the evidence shows that it has actually made health coverage more expensive.

“As a result, I voted yes tonight with 51 of my colleagues to repeal most of Obamacare’s harmful provisions. The president should sign this bill so we can begin moving toward free market reforms that devolve power from Washington toward doctors and patients. If the president refuses and instead vetoes this bill, our repeal is a marker for what a Republican Congress again will pass in 2017 under an administration that is willing to admit the harm done by Obamacare.”