Health care anger puts GOP reps on defensive back home

PALATKA, Fla. — Inside a government building here, farright Rep. Ted Yoho, R-Fla., scolded his party's leaders for rolling out an "ill-advised" health-care bill and blamed House Speaker Paul Ryan for the ensuing debacle.

The next evening on a college campus nestled in the Rocky Mountains, moderate Rep. Mike Coffman, R-Colo., held the House Freedom Caucus — to which Yoho belongs — culpable for the legislation's defeat.

In both places, Republican voters also pointed fingers — at President Donald Trump, Ryan, their members of Congress, or all of them.

Fewer than 100 days after Republicans assumed complete control of Washington, D.C., their botched attempt to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act and broader struggles to cooperate have stoked widespread distrust and despair inside the party. The friction is evident at town hall meetings across the country during the current congressional recess.

One lifelong Republican attending Coffman's town hall in Colorado exclaimed that he was "shocked" by the congressman's support for the healthcare bill, which both Trump and Ryan backed. At Yoho's event, an attendee pressed the congressman on his role in the Freedom Caucus.

The open warfare threatens the president and the GOP agenda, but is also dampening enthusiasm with Republican voters who can no longer blame Democrats or divided government for the dysfunction.

"I think it's just tough working with our conference," Coffman said in an interview, referring to the fact that House Republicans find it almost impossible to agree.

The frustration is visible in both purple areas such as Coffman's district, which will factor heavily into the battle for Congress in 2018; and ruby-red regions, such as Yoho's seat, which voted strongly for Trump and could be crucial in 2020. It is present in districts represented by members who supported the bill like Coffman, as well as those who opposed it like Yoho.

Bob White, a Republican who attended Yoho's town hall here Tuesday, raised a worrisome question for GOP lawmakers on the ballot next year.

"If there was another election I'd still vote for Ted Yoho," he said in an interview the next day. But a few moments later, White abruptly raised a different possibility: "Or maybe I would just skip over his name."