Trump briefed on new proposal by GOP leaders
WASHINGTON — House Republican leaders Friday defended their effort to pass a sweeping overhaul of the Affordable Care Act, as they met President Trump at the White House amid mounting criticism from conservatives urging them to go further.
At a news conference on Capitol Hill, the House GOP lawmakers taking the lead on shepherding the bill through the lower chamber outlined their next steps in repealing and replacing key parts of the ACA. Their attempt has come under attack from both ends of the political spectrum.
“Some have said that this legislation doesn’t do enough,” said Rep. Diane Black, RTenn., who chairs the House Budget Committee. The panel is expected to work on the bill next week. She added: “It zeros out the mandate, it repeals the taxes, it repeals the subsidies, and it rolls back some of the regulations.”
House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Bakersfield, argued that because of the power the minority party holds in the Senate, the American Health Care Act, as the GOP bill is known, is the most aggressive plan Republicans can spearhead right now. He said it is just one of three phases in reshaping health-care laws that will also later involve Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price taking actions from the executive branch.
The meeting with Trump at the White House came the day after the GOP proposal to revise the Affordable Care Act claimed its first major victories amid a backlash that both Republican leaders and Trump have been trying to tamp down.
Trump met with conservative critics of the plan, signaling a willingness to negotiate its details and indicating that it does not yet have enough votes to emerge from the House. More acknowledgment of the proposal’s problems came from Senate Republicans, who suggested Thursday that the measure is moving too quickly through the House and in a form unlikely to succeed if it gets to the upper chamber.
Yet the plan emerged from two key House committees Thursday, and House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., its top booster, insisted that the pending legislation represents the “only chance we’re going to get” to fulfill the GOP’s longstanding promise to undo the Affordable Care Act.
The GOP proposal cleared the Ways and Means and the Energy and Commerce committees on party-line votes after marathon sessions that lasted through Wednesday night and into Thursday. It now heads to yet another panel, the Budget Committee, and it remains on track to land on the House floor by month’s end.
But the proposal faces challenges with both GOP conservatives and moderates, in addition to Democrats, many of whom questioned the lightning-fast process and raised dueling qualms about its policy provisions.