Party divided over healthcare changes

UNITED STATES: US President Donald Trump is facing his first revolt from Republicans on Capitol Hill, as the Right of the party digs in to oppose his plans to replace Barack Obama’s healthcare reforms.

The Republican leadership in the House of Representatives on Tuesday presented a draft health bill, endorsed by Trump, that would keep some of the most popular parts of Obama’s reforms, including a ban on denying coverage to people with pre-existing conditions and allowing young people to remain on their parents’ health plans until the age of 26. It would scrap a mandate for Americans to buy health insurance or suffer tax penalties under the Affordable Care Act, replacing it with a system of tax credits to induce people to buy coverage.

The plan was swiftly attacked by the Republican Right as a new, fiscally reckless government welfare scheme.

During the Obama era, congressional Republicans voted dozens of times to scrap Obamacare, knowing each time that they were sure to be vetoed by the president. Now Trump must unite the party around a single vision of how to replace the legislation.

Minutes after the draft bill was released, Justin Amash, a Michigan congressman and member of the Freedom Caucus, a group of about 30 hardline conservatives in the 435-seat chamber, denounced it as ‘‘Obamacare 2.0’’.

The Republican Study Committee, a group of 172 conservative members of Congress, said in a memo: ‘‘This is a Republican welfare entitlement.’’

Four more Republican senators - Rob Portman of Ohio, Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia, Cory Gardner of Colorado and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska - protested that the draft bill did not do enough to protect people in their states who had qualified for government-provided healthcare under Obamacare.

Democrats claim that millions of people will be stripped of coverage or forced to pay more, while the wealthy will benefit from tax cuts. - The Times