DES MOINES, Iowa -- Rep. Steve King vowed Saturday at an Iowa Faith & Freedom Coalition fundraiser that a Republican will be sworn in as president on Jan. 20, 2013 with a pen in hand. Instead of shaking Chief Justice John Roberts' hand, they will first sign King's bill to fully repeal health care reform.
King, a western Iowa Republican who sponsored legislation to fully repeal health care reform, said the bill was Democrats' way of figuring out how to regulate a person's body.
"Obamacare is the nationalization of your skin and everything inside, and it's a ten percent tax on the outside if you go to the tanning salon," said King.
King's sentiment was reiterated by Rep. Mike Pence of Indiana, who claimed the goal of the health care reform was to make Americans forever dependent on the federal government when they are most vulnerable.
"Their hope is that little by little we'll yield our freedoms and our resources to the federal government," Pence said to the crowd.
While some Republicans, including in the "Pledge to America," call for a 'Repeal and Replace' strategy, King does not.
"I want to strip this thing down to the complete one-hundred percent repeal of Obamacare, and let's get that argument resolved," King later said to the Huffington Post. "But I believe that packaging together repeal and replace sets up an almost impossible legislative mission. Because if you argue that you must also have replacement as a component of repeal that list will always be too long or too short for someone else."
While King said he does not support much of what is in the Democrats' reform, a step by step approach is how he'd like to see any future reform passed.
"Republicans should not fall into the trap that Democrats fell into by putting together a huge package of reform and calling it comprehensive health care reform because when you do that you set yourself up for the fall," said King. "We need to do individual standalone pieces of legislation after, and only after, Obamacare is one-hundred percent repealed."