House GOP revises health care plan; Trump rallies support outside capital
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump is deploying an outside and inside strategy to fulfill his campaign promise to repeal and replace Obamacare, seeking support beyond Washington before making an in-person pitch on Capitol Hill. Top House Republicans unveiled proposed changes in their legislation in hopes of winning support, three days before the big House vote.
Trump rallied supporters Monday night in Louisville, Ky., alongside Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., after meetings and phone calls in Washington aimed at steadying the troubled legislation designed to erase President Barack Obama’s signature health care law, formally called the Affordable Care Act. He planned to court House Republicans on Tuesday.
“We want a very big tax cut but cannot do that until we keep our promise to repeal and replace the disaster known as Obamacare,” Trump told the crowd of thousands in Louisville. “This is our long-awaited chance to finally get rid of Obamacare. It’s a longawaited chance. We’re going to do it,” he said.
With their showpiece bill revamping the 2010 health care law at stake, House GOP leaders released 43 pages of revisions to the legislation in hopes of rounding up votes.
Earlier tax repeals
The measure would pave the way for the Senate, if it chooses, to make the bill’s tax credit more generous for people ages 50 to 65. Details in the documents released were unclear, but one GOP lawmaker and an aide said the language sets aside $85 billion over 10 years for that purpose.
The measure would also accelerate the repeal of tax increases on higher earners, the medical industry and others to this year instead of 2018. It would be easier for people to deduct expenses from their taxes, and older and disabled Medicaid beneficiaries would get larger benefits.
It would also curb future Medicaid growth and let states impose work requirements on some recipients.
Many GOP opponents were unhappy that nonpartisan analysts said their party’s legislation would drive up costs for older people. The leaders’ changes were aimed at addressing those concerns.
Trump resumed his campaign-style events at the start of a consequential week for his young presidency. Confirmation hearings for his nominee for the Supreme Court, Judge Neil Gorsuch, opened Monday before the Senate Judiciary Committee. The House was expected to vote Thursday on the health care bill.
Trump’s Louisville rally followed a daylong congressional hearing in which FBI Director James Comey acknowledged for the first time that the agency was investigating whether Trump’s campaign colluded with Russian officials seeking to influence the 2016 campaign.
Will ‘be wonderful’
Many hard-line conservatives have pushed for a more complete repeal of Obama’s law, including its requirement that policies cover a long list of services, which they say drives up premiums. They also complain that the GOP bill’s tax credits create an overly generous benefit.
Moderate Republicans, meanwhile, have said the tax credits are too limited and would hurt low earners and older patients.
At the rally, Trump suggested he wasn’t wedded to the current version of bill. “We’re going to negotiate. And it’s going to go to the Senate and back and forth,” he said, assuring that the “end result is going to be wonderful, and it’s going to work great.”