House continues health care push
Republicans hope to leave changes to Senate
WASHINGTON — The aim has become very simple for House Republicans stumbling closer to passing a bill to revise the Affordable Care Act: just get it off their plates and over to the Senate.
In the messy effort to rally their often unruly party around a measure to replace big parts of former President Barack Obama’s health care law, House leaders have been forced to focus on one simple, political goal: pass a bill they can say repeals Obamacare — even if it has no hope of survival in the Senate — to shield their members in next year’s elections.
“I would hope it gets changed over there,” Rep. Peter T. King, R-N.Y., told Bloomberg News, echoing other center-right members who explicitly said they were willing to pass the new revision in hopes the Senate would strip out the harsher provisions.
Even that goal, however, is proving elusive. By late Monday, House leaders had collected more votes than ever, but still appeared to be shy of the 216 Republicans they need. They’re stuck between conservatives and moderates, both keenly aware of how they can be attacked on the issue next year.
“If you’re in the House, what you should be thinking now is that if it doesn’t survive, it all comes back to you,” said Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo.
The White House, where aides have suggested a Wednesday vote is possible, continued to lobby members Monday although no vote had been scheduled. Vice President Mike Pence hunkered in his office on the House side of the Capitol, with undecided and yes-voting members stopping by to talk.
Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, a conservative member of the whip team who had endorsed the previous version of the bill, told reporters that the votes were there to pass the new version. But several members from swing seats, including Rep. Mike Coffman, R-Colo., and Rep. David Valadao, R-Calif., said outside Pence’s office that they remained undecided.
Even some members who won their seats partially on promises to repeal the ACA are blinking, citing changes to the proposed replacement that would allow insurers to charge higher premiums to patients with preexisting conditions if their state got permission from the feds.
In 2010, Rep. Billy Long, R-Mo., campaigned for a safe Republican seat in Congress by pledging to fight “government-run health care.” Every two years, he won easy victories while telling voters he was “fighting to repeal Obamacare.”
On Monday, Long came out against the American Health Care Act with a few kind words about the law it was designed to replace. During unrelated votes Monday night, Long could be seen in a lengthy conversation with House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis.
“I have always stated that one of the few good things about Obamacare is that people with pre-existing conditions would be covered,” Long said in a statement. “The MacArthur amendment strips away any guarantee that pre-existing conditions would be covered and affordable.”
Over the weekend, President Donald Trump hadn’t helped. In an interview on CBS News’s “Face the Nation” Sunday, Trump said the latest bill would “beautifully” protect those with pre-existing medical conditions, which is not fully true.
Ryan agreed to support an amendment that would allow insurance providers in some states to deny coverage or charge higher premiums to people with pre-existing conditions or costly health problems, as long as that state set up “high-risk pools” that could help cover the cost of care.