House GOP passes bill to repeal Obamacare
Legislation moves to Senate after tight vote
WASHINGTON — House Republicans narrowly passed legislation Thursday to roll back the Affordable Care Act, the first step toward delivering on a years-long campaign promise despite mounting concerns from health care groups that the legislation would strip protections used by millions of Americans.
The tight vote, 217-213, with all Democrats opposed, underscored the limited appeal of the American Health Care Act, which passed thanks to last-minute deal-making and the personal intervention of President Donald Trump. Even so, 20 Republicans defected to vote against the measure.
After House GOP leaders had shelved previous attempts to advance the bill because of a lack of support from their party, Thursday’s vote provided a major legislative victory to Trump.
“Make no mistake, this is a re-
peal and replace of Obamacare,” a buoyant Trump said at a Rose Garden reception for Republicans at the White House immediately after the vote. “It’s essentially dead.”
But the future of the bill remains highly uncertain, as Senate Republicans expressed deep reservations about the potential that Americans will lose their health care coverage under the measure.
Senate leaders, including health committee chairman Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., indicated they wanted to proceed slowly with a new bill that would not jeopardize coverage for as many people as the House measure. That means that any Senate progress on health legislation will likely take weeks, if not months, and could pose a serious challenge if it must be reconciled with the House version, which was crafted to win over the most conservative wing of the party.
Longer term, the narrow passage of the House bill and the prospect that the debate will drag into the summer or beyond virtually assures that health care once again will be a dominant issue in midterm elections.
Republican leaders pressed many of their members from swing districts to support the bill. Democrats are likely to use those votes against Republicans when they run for re-election, just as Republicans did in ousting Democrats after Obamacare was passed in 2010.
Democrats sang, “Hey, hey, hey, goodbye,” on the House floor as the bill was being approved, predicting voters would boot Republicans from office as a result.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., orchestrated a full-scale floor opposition Thursday against what she called the “moral monstrosity of Trumpcare,” but Democrats were unable to block the measure.
House Speaker Paul Ryan told lawmakers this was their moment to make good on their promise to voters.
“Are we going to be men and women of our word? Are we going to keep the promises we made? Or are we going to falter?” Ryan said in an unusually fiery speech ahead of the vote.
The full cost and effect of bill remains unclear because GOP leaders called the vote without first waiting for a new analysis from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. A previous assessment, before amendments
Potentially faring best in the House bill would be wealthy Americans and the insurance industry.
were made to appease conservative and centrist factions, estimated the GOP plan would leave 24 million more Americans without health care coverage by 2026.
The legislation cuts more than $1 trillion in federal health care assistance to lowand moderate-income Americans, primarily through a historic retrenchment in Medicaid.
It stands to reverse an expansion of health care under Obamacare that has brought the nation’s uninsured rate to the lowest level recorded — an additional 20 million Americans have gained coverage.
And even though Republicans insisted their bill would lower premiums and protect vulnerable Americans, the vote was swiftly condemned by a wide range of patient advocates, physicians and other health care groups.
Potentially faring best in the House bill would be wealthy Americans and the insurance industry.
Both would benefit from the elimination of as much as $600 billion in taxes enacted under Obamacare to help pay for the coverage expansion.
Several studies have shown that Trump’s own supporters, living in conservative, rural areas, would fare the worst, paying higher premiums or losing benefits.
A key change from the original bill that was sought by the conservative House Freedom Caucus allows states to apply for waivers from some of Obamacare’s most popular requirements, including the ban on insurers charging more for patients with preexisting medical conditions.
Also Thursday, the Senate voted to approve a $1.1 trillion spending bill to fund the government through September, preventing a government shutdown.
Trump is expected to sign the measure, which passed 79 to 18 ahead of a deadline to keep the government open past today.