Republican attacks GOP health care bill
Upton: Pre-existing medical conditions must be protected.
WASHINGTON — The former chairman of one of the House committees that drafted legislation to repeal and replace large parts of the health care law came out against a new version of the bill on Tuesday, saying the measure “torpedoes” protections for people with pre-existing medical conditions.
Rep. Fred Upton of Michigan, who chaired the House Energy and Commerce Committee as
the health care law repeal movement built steam, declared on a local radio show, “I cannot support the bill with this provision in it,” just as House Speaker Paul Ryan was insisting that the legislation would protect the sick.
The loss of Upton, an influential Republican voice on health care, was a huge blow,
and it came as Republican leaders faced an onslaught of advocacy groups, political attack ads and even a late-night talk show host, Jimmy Kimmel, saying the
bill would harm the nation’s most vulnerable citizens.
A tearful Kimmel on Monday night offered up the story of his infant son’s near-death heart surgery, followed by an appeal to Congress not to undermine the health care law’s ban on discrimination against people with pre-ex- isting medical conditions.
After Kimmel’s monologue went viral on the Internet,
former President Barack Obama piled on, tweeting, “Well said, Jimmy. That’s exactly why we fought so hard for the ACA, and why we need to protect it for kids
like Billy. And congratula- tions!”
Upton was explicit: The concessions made to win
over the conservatives in the House Freedom Caucus were costing the leadership support from more moderate Republicans.
“I’m not at all comfortable with removing that protection,” Upton said of the pre-existing condition concession.
Ryan insisted that Republi- cans were “making very good progress with our members,” but he offered no indica-
tion of when a vote might be held on the measure. Trump administration officials have said a vote could come as early as today, but as House Republican leaders scrambled to assemble a major- ity, a quick vote appeared unlikely.
“There are a few layers of protections for pre-existing conditions in this bill,” Ryan said at a news confer- ence. “What’s important is we want to have a situation where people can afford their health insurance. We want to have a situation where peo- ple have a choice of health insurers. That’s not happen- ing in Obamacare.” Ryan and his fellow Republican lead- ers, under intense pressure from the White House, are struggling to round up the support for a revised version of their bill to repeal and replace Obama’s Afford- able Care Act.
After the failure of their earlier repeal bill in March,
they have held off moving forward with a vote while trying to build support for the updated measure. At the heart of the debate is an amendment to the bill proposed by Rep. Tom MacAr- thur, R-N.J., with the blessing of House Republican leaders.
The amendment won over the conservative House Free- dom Caucus last week, in part by giving state governments the ability to apply for waivers from the existing law’s required “essen- tial health benefits,” such as maternity, mental health and emergency care, and from rules that generally mandate the same rates for people of the same age, regardless of their medical conditions. The MacArthur amend-
ment has given pause to numerous moderate Repub- licans, in large part because of concerns over whether it would allow states to gut those consumer protections.
As Ryan was defending the plan, the Association of American Medical Colleges came out against it,
joining the American Medical Association and a host of disease advocacy groups. Darrell G. Kirch, president
and chief executive of the medical colleges group, said
the newest version of the repeal bill “dilutes protections for many Americans and would leave individu- als with pre-existing conditions facing higher premi-
ums and reduced access to vital care.” Under the amend-
ment, states could obtain a waiver from a provision of
the health care law that prohibits insurers from charging higher rates to people with pre-existing conditions. With a waiver, states could permit insurers to charge higher pre
miums based on the “health status” of a person who had experienced a gap in coverage. To qualify for a waiver, a state would have to have an alternative mechanism such as a high-risk pool or a reinsurance program to provide or subsidize coverage for people with serious illnesses. “States can’t leave people with pre-existing conditions high and dry,” MacArthur said Tuesday, defending his proposal. “They must have a risk pool, which would protect people from being priced out of the market.”