President Trump celebrates health vote win with jubilant Republicans
Rep. Tom Graves, R-Ranger, says that, with the new measure, each state would be able to take its own approach.
Declaring it “an unbelievable victory,” President Donald Trump delayed his first trip home to New York as president to celebrate House passage Thursday of legislation undoing much of former President Barack Obama’s health law, a top campaign promise and a long-sought Republican goal.
Trump celebrated with jubilant Republicans during a hastily arranged appearance in the Rose Garden, where they exulted in the passage of their replacement health care bill, which squeaked through the House by a vote of 217-213.
“The first bill I introduced after I was elected to Congress in 2010 was legislation to defund Obamacare,” said Rep. Tom Graves, R-Ranger. “Over the last seven years we kept fighting, we never gave up, and now we’re finally passing a bill to repeal and replace Obamacare that will hit the desk of a president who will sign it.”
Republicans bused in from Capitol Hill for the victory lap, an unusually early celebration for the passage of a bill through just one house of Congress.
The legislation, which faces sharp Democratic opposition, now heads to the Senate where it faces an uncertain fate.
“People are suffering so badly with the ravages of Obamacare,” said Trump, whose West Wing staff was eager for the appearance of a victory after an uneven first 100 days in office.
A joyous Trump at one point even turned to the representatives lined up behind him and, suggesting the victory was especially impressive for a novice politician, exclaimed “Hey, I’m president! I’m president! Can you believe it?!”
Known as the American Healthcare Act, the bill has yet to receive a price tag from the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office and is opposed by a number of physician and health care groups, including the American Medical Association, amid concerns it could strip millions of Americans of their coverage, including those with pre-existing medical conditions.
Graves, in a press release, noted that this is one of three concurrent phases in Trump’s healthcare plan.
The second part consists of “administrative actions, which Health and Human Services Secretary
Tom Price will take to eliminate harmful regulations and allow more choice and competition in the health insurance marketplace ,” Graves said.
The third is additional legislation, including the Competitive Health Insurance Reform Act, which applies federal antitrust laws to the insurance industry to prohibit companies from collaborating to fix prices and assign markets. H.R. 372 passed the House in March and was sent to the Senate.
Graves said the AHCA contains protections for people with pre-existing conditions: They cannot be denied coverage. However, a PolitiFact analysis finds the Obamacare rules limiting how much those people can be charged are not included in the House bill.
What’s new, Graves said, is that each state can take its own approach, “as long as there are basic protections and clear benefits, such as increasing enrollment, offering more choices and lowering costs.
“A lot of work has gone into finding the right balance between lifting federal mandates and protecting Americans with serious health challenges, and I believe this is it,” he added.