Freedom Caucus carries on ACA repeal fight

Arizona’s members of the House Freedom Caucus, which helped scuttle the GOP plan to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, said this week that the battle over health care in Congress isn’t finished.

Three of the state’s five Republican House members offered varying degrees of optimism for passage of a Republican health-care bill in the near future. But the dynamics in Washington don’t appear to have changed since House Speaker Paul Ryan pulled the legislation before Friday’s vote.

The bill’s failure was a blow to President Donald Trump’s legislative agenda and set off days of finger-pointing, including at conservative Republicans for, as some critics viewed it, doing Democrats a favor by withholding support for the bill.

The White House and Ryan indicated they hope for another shot at the issue. But Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said his chamber isn’t planning to tackle it.

The mixed messages highlight the uncertain future the issue still faces. No Democrats supported the Ryan bill and at least two of Arizona’s five Republicans opposed it as well, though for different reasons.

Days later, the basic concerns over the healthcare plan had not changed.

“I’m one of those who believe we’ll still get health care. This time it probably shouldn’t come from leadership. It’s going to have to be a bit more organic, coming from the members,” said Rep. David Schweikert, R-Ariz., who backed the Ryan bill despite displeasure with parts of it. “The interesting thing is now we at least know what everybody’s issues are. If we get over our hurt feelings for a couple weeks and come back at it after that, we at least have a really good starting point of knowing where everyone is at.”

Rep. Andy Biggs, RAriz., who opposed the Ryan bill, insisted the GOP can still muster support for other health-care changes.

“People made promises to do an absolute repeal (of ‘Obamacare’), and that bill didn’t do a repeal,” he said. “This is an opportunity to go back and keep faith with the American people.”

Biggs said it would have made more sense for the House simply to have revived the anti-“Obamacare” bill that it passed in 2015. There also are a couple of other health-care bills this year, including one he co-sponsored that is a straight repeal that would take effect in 2018, allowing insurance companies and health-care providers time to prepare for the change.

Ryan’s “bill was something that was completely different,” Biggs said. “It kept intact the entire infrastructure of Obamacare. All the replacement stuff that you hear about was in another bill that was going require 60 votes out of the Senate. How likely is that to happen? Most people agree it wasn’t very likely.”

Rep. Trent Franks, RAriz., who would not say whether supported or opposed the Ryan bill, said he thinks the House could vote on another healthcare bill within a month. He acknowledged it faces the same problems in the Senate that forced the House to pursue a milder bill than many conservative Republicans were willing to support.

Still, after a stinging defeat last week, there is a willingness to try again, he said.

“The president is inclined to let us take another stab at it,” Franks said. “The real contention within the (Republican) conference, whether all of us know it or not, is the fact that some of us want to maintain the original objective of repealing and replacing Obamacare. The challenge is, it will not fit through ... the Senate rules.”

Republican Reps. Paul Gosar and Martha McSally could not be reached for comment. Gosar opposed the Ryan bill and McSally supported it.

Sean Spicer, the White House press secretary, said Tuesday that Trump is still interested in a deal on health care but didn’t suggest the kind of handson negotiating that was evident last week.

“Have we had some discussions and listened to ideas? Yes. Are we actively planning an immediate strategy? Not at this time,” Spicer said.

Neither is McConnell, R-Ky., in the Senate.

“Where we are on Obamacare, regretfully at the moment, is where the Democrats wanted us to be,” he told Politico.

Schweikert suggested a quiet campaign by other House members could move the issue along better than the Ryan bill that seemed handed down from leadership with too little room for negotiation among GOP members.

“It may come back in a unique fashion. If it demonstrates it has the votes, it will move,” he said. “This time my guess is it won’t appear on the calendar until there’s an understanding it has the votes.”

There are several open seats in the House because Trump tapped Republicans to fill Cabinet positions. Once those vacancies are filled, it could help add to the party’s ability to move ahead in the House. Even so, Schweikert said the new members could also introduce new problems to manage as well.

Schweikert said the bill was a compromise for him.

“I actually wasn’t thrilled, but the only way I was going to get another couple bites to fix the things I thought could be fixed is it had to stay alive,” Schweikert said. “On a scale of one to 10, you’re like a 3.5, but if it stops, you get nothing.”

Biggs called for calm on the issue.

“I know a lot of people are really pulling their hair out about it, but, for me, this is a normal legislative process where people are trying to work something out. They want to get the bill done, but they can’t get the votes, so you pull it,” said Biggs. “So we go back and we keep working on it.”

Biggs said House Republicans can and should do better.

“Perfect for me would be a repeal with some patient-centered market reforms,” Biggs said. “That’s what I want, but it doesn’t have to be perfect, if we are making progress towards the best we can do. So I was never an absolute no-way-would-I-evervote for a bill.”