Arizona delegation:
Arizona Republicans joined the state’s four Democrats in the U.S. House to help torpedo the GOP’s health-care plan Friday. Arizona has four members of the Freedom Caucus, and at least two of them, Republican Reps. Andy Biggs and Paul Gosar, said in recent days that the bill was insufficiently conservative.
At least two Arizona Republicans joined the state’s four Democrats in the U.S. House to help torpedo the GOP’s health-care plan Friday in a move that seemingly ends efforts to reshape the nation’s health-care system.
House Speaker Paul Ryan pulled the American Health Care Act without a vote as it became clear the House Freedom Caucus, the rightmost flank of the House Republicans, maintained more than enough “no” votes to sink the measure with unified Democratic opposition.
Arizona has four members of the Freedom Caucus and at least two of them, Republican Reps. Andy Biggs and Paul Gosar, said in recent days that the bill was insufficiently conservative.
A third member, Rep. Trent Franks, was officially undeclared.
In conversations with his constituents last week, he said the GOP’s narrow control of the Senate meant the House bill would always fall short of his more conservative positions to have any hope of undoing President Barack Obama’s signature health-care overhaul, the Affordable Care Act.
Reps. Martha McSally and David Schweikert supported the bill.
None of them was available for comment Friday.
In a statement, Jack Pandol, a spokesman for the National Republican Campaign Committee, said the ACA’s problems belong to the Democrats.
“‘Obamacare’ is still a fatally flawed law, subjecting Arizona families to a crushing 116 percent increase in premiums just this year. Democrats can’t change the fact they own this law and all its failures,” he said.
Political fallout
The apparent loss on Ryan’s healthcare bill is a major setback to Republicans, who had made repealing the ACA a pillar of their campaigns since 2010, and to President Donald Trump, whose first foray into major legislation ends with the same kind of party infighting that yielded a government shutdown in 2013.
“We’re going to be living with Obamacare for the foreseeable future,” Ryan told reporters after conceding defeat.
The same could be said for the political fallout.
Democrats seized on the bill’s defeat, honing in on McSally, whose southern Arizona district is evenly divided between Democrats and Republicans and figures to be a seat the party aims to retake.
“Congresswoman McSally is already on the record supporting a reckless repeal bill that would have ripped health insurance from 24 million Americans, slapped an age tax on older folks trying to retire with dignity, and raised premiums and out-of-pocket costs for Arizonans,” said Cole Leiter, a spokesman for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. “She will absolutely be held accountable for being so shamefully out-of-touch with her constituents.”
In a statement, McSally defended moving to replace the ACA.
“The Affordable Care Act is still failing families in Arizona, and so the mission has not changed,” she said. “Since I was first elected to Congress, I have been committed to fighting for the best healthcare possible for Southern Arizonans, and I have never ceased to do that. Throughout this process I submitted detailed proposals, negotiated with House Leadership and the White House, and ultimately added two amendments to the bill that looked out for the vulnerable: our seniors, the disabled, expecting and new mothers, newborns, those who struggle with mental illness and those who wrestle with substance abuse.”
Republicans could lose only 22 GOP votes and still pass the bill to the Senate. Trump said Friday that 10 to 15 more than that had opposed the measure.
Ryan’s bill crumbled on both ends of the Republican Party, with some moderates joining many hard-line conservatives against it.
Some conservatives, like Gosar, complained about the breakneck pace.
“I don’t care who says it. I’ve lived this,” he said in an interview with the Los
Angeles Times on Tuesday. “I’m tired of this place: You got to pass something because there’s some little deadline? Do the right thing.”
Biggs issued a statement Thursday that repeated his desire for a system more reliant on the free market.
“In its current configuration, the AHCA keeps the framework of Obamacare in place and continues to provide massive federal subsidies,” he said. “It does not fully address funding for our highrisk population, nor does it lead to the lower premiums Americans are expecting for economic relief. In short, the legislation wrongfully perpetuates national control over health care, and I will not support a piece of legislation that fails to meet the expectations of my district.”
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated the revised health care bill would lead to about 24 million fewer people with health coverage 10 years from now. It also estimated the government would save about $150 billion over a decade.
The revised bill didn’t improve coverage and cut the government savings from $337 billion in the original version.
Political infighting among GOP?
It’s unclear whether any political recriminations would involve intraparty attacks.
Earlier in the week, Trump reportedly threatened political vengeance on the chairman of the Freedom Caucus, Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., if the bill failed. “I’m gonna come after you, but I know I won’t have to, because I know you’ll vote ‘yes,’ ” Trump said, according to the Washington Post.
Prominent conservative groups like the Club for Growth, whose affiliated political action committee has invested heavily in Arizona races in recent years, opposed the bill. On Friday, the organization’s president, David McIntosh, told Fox Business News he still thinks health care can move ahead with a more conservative plan.
“I think there’s a path forward. It means taking the president’s plan, putting it into one bill, coming back and voting on that and then letting the Senate work what it can,” he said.
Gosar, whose district spans northwestern Arizona, survived $611,000 in spending by the Club for Growth to defeat him in 2012. Last year, the organization supported his re-election after smaller “dark money attacks“by a group that was hostile to some Freedom Caucus members.
Gosar is a dentist who rode the antiObamacare wave to Washington in the 2010 elections. In the years since, he cast himself as an outspoken critic of the ACA with firsthand experience with its impact on medicine and consumers.
Biggs is a free-market conservative who arguably owes his seat in Washington to timely help from the Club for Growth in last year’s Republican primary. He posted a come-from-behind 27vote victory with more than $500,000 in late support from the group.
But Biggs had a record against government-led health care. As president of the Arizona Senate last year, Biggs stonewalled a bill to reinstate KidsCare, a children’s health program funded by the federal government. He relented when some fellow Republicans joined Democrats to bring the measure back.
That was similar to Biggs’ failed efforts to prevent Arizona from expanding its Medicaid program under the ACA.