Maine Gov. Paul LePage Says He’s ‘Very Discouraged and Disappointed’ By GOP Health Care Plan

Washington — (CNN) Maine Gov. Paul LePage said Tuesday that he is “very, very discouraged and disappointed” with the House Republican plan to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act.

“Right now, I am very, very discouraged and disappointed with what the House Republicans are introducing,” LePage, a Republican, said on the “George Hale and Ric Tyler Show” on WVOM Maine radio. “Basically it’s not much better than—in fact, I don’t know, they haven’t scored it yet, so we don’t know what the cost is. But based on what I see and I’m reading and what has happened here in Maine over the last 15 years, I don’t think it’s an improvement.”

After the bill to replace the Affordable Care Act was released, it garnered criticism, including from conservatives such as Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, who called it “Obamacare Lite.”

LePage similarly agreed that the replacement had failed to learn what he called the lessons of the current health care law.

“Being Maine and being the oldest state in the union, we are going to be not on the front end, not in a good place with what’s on the table right now,” he said. “I think what they need to do is rethink what they’re doing. Because we’ve already lived it. We’ve had the early expansion. We’ve lived through Obamacare. We’ve learned some lessons and they ought to be watching and listening and using the data that we have.”