TAKE IT OR LEAVE IT
Prez demands vote today on Trumpcare
WASHINGTON — His Trumpcare plan is on life support, but the President is demanding House Republicans vote on it Friday anyway.
The House postponed a scheduled Thursday vote on the teetering Obamacare repeal plan after Trump failed to close the deal with a key conservative bloc.
Just hours later, House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney let House members know that the President is done negotiating — and is demanding a do-or-die Friday vote.
“Negotiations are over. We’d like to vote tomorrow and let’s get this done for the American people,” Mulvaney told lawmakers.
Ryan emerged from the evening meetings vowing to vote on the bill Friday.
During the closed-door sessions, House leaders agreed to four pages of last-minute amendments to the bill, including allowing states to choose which “essential benefits” are required in insurance plans, and keeping a 0.9% surcharge on Medicare for high-income Americans for six years. It was unclear whether that was enough.
The high-stakes game of chicken is the first major congressional test for Trump — and could go a long way to determining his future ability to pass major legislation.
Roughly three dozen Republicans have said they can’t support the bill as it stands, and if Trump can help Ryan bully, cajole and sweettalk that number down below the 22 defections that GOP leaders can afford, the moment will mark how much much admiration — or fear — he can inspire within the conference.
Failure would be an embarrassing black eye for the new President, showing the limits to his arm-twisting abilities and raising questions about whether he has the patience for complicated legislation, dealing a potentially devastating blow to his legislative agenda.
Mulvaney indicated in the meeting that if the vote fails, Trump is likely to walk away from the issue, bailing on a top campaign promise to repeal and replace Obamacare.
Republicans had repeatedly promised a Thursday vote on their bill to coincide with the seventh anniversary of Obamacare becoming law. But the prospects of keeping that vow dwindled to nothing throughout the day as it became increasingly clear that members of the hard-line House Freedom Caucus wouldn’t bite on any of the concessions the White House was offering.
After the meeting between White House officials and House Republican leadership Thursday, GOP congressmen said Trump wasn’t offering any more concessions — and was demanding they do an up-or-down vote Friday morning, even though they don’t appear to have enough votes to pass the repeal plan.
The bill’s potential collapse could do major damage to Ryan, a strong proponent of the plan.
“Tomorrow, we are proceeding,” he said in a terse statement.