Conservatives rally against GOP health plan, but Cruz among those seeing a compromise
WASHINGTON — Conservatives kept up their barrage against the American Health Care Act on Wednesday, as FreedomWorks, one of the grass-roots organizations brought to meet President Donald Trump last week, went ahead with a “Day of Action” against the bill it calls “Ryancare,” after House Speaker Paul Ryan, its chief proponent.
Braving 28-degree weather and biting winds, hundreds of them grabbed “Storm the Capitol” baseball caps and cheered for Republican members of Congress as they promised them a fight.
But the group’s rally on the Hill, joined by Congress’s most prominent Republican opponents of the Ryan plan, revealed the divisions inside the conservative opposition.
Republicans like Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., who introduced his own Affordable Care Act replacement in January, are committed to voting down anything less than full repeal.
Republicans like Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, joined by FreedomWorks itself, are trying to tweak the bill into one they can support.
Cruz, who pointedly did not appear at a previous conservative rally against the Ryan plan, told activists at Wednesday’s event that they could help him — and the president — shape the plan into one they could support.
“The leaders you’re hearing from are working to take the House plan — which has a lot of problems — and try to make it a real repeal that lowers premiums, that gives you control over your health care,” said Cruz.
“I believe we can get it done. I can tell ya, the last week, four days, I’ve been at the White House meeting with the president, with the vice president, saying, we’ve got to get it done.”
In a memo obtained by the Washington Post, and intended for the White House and members of Congress, FreedomWorks itself suggested that the Ryan bill could be amended in ways that made it worth conservative votes.
In the memo, FreedomWorks offered praise for sections of the bill, calling the expansion of Health Savings Accounts “a positive reform that we support.”