GOP group leader steps down over health bill
WASHINGTON — A New Jersey Republican congressman who helped push the House health care bill to passage quit his post Tuesday as a chairman of the chamber’s moderate Tuesday Group, criticizing colleagues for having “different objectives and a different sense of governing than I do.”
Rep. Tom MacArthur, a second-term congressman, announced his decision at a closeddoor meeting of the group, which has roughly 50 members.
MacArthur played a central role in reviving the GOP legislation after an initial version collapsed under opposition from GOP moderates and conservatives. He and Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., leader of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, wrote language that helped push the bill over the top early this month.
It included letting states get federal permission for insurers to boost premiums on some people with preexisting medical conditions, and to drop insurance coverage requirements under President Barack Obama’s health care law. Senate Republicans are now trying to write their own version.
The House bill passed over opposition from all voting Democrats and 20 Republicans. Fifteen of those Republicans are in the Tuesday Group and argued that the measure went too far in diminishing health care coverage for people.
MacArthur said some members of the group “bristled” as he tried making the group a relevant force on key issues.
“Clearly, our group is divided,” the former insurance executive said. “Many in the Tuesday Group are eager to live up to our ideal of being problemsolvers, while others seem unwilling to compromise.”