Ryan, Pence race to salvage Obamacare repeal amid GOP dissent
Ryan, Pence race to salvage Obamacare repeal amid GOP dissent:- House GOP leaders scrambled Wednesday to muster support for their plan to replace Obamacare, even as Speaker Paul Ryan conceded for the first time that the bill would need further changes to placate conservatives threatening to sink the package.
Ryan and his allies spent Wednesday floating the potential modifications — at the request of the White House — to members. They’re trying to gauge if the amendments could win over skeptical conservatives without repelling moderates, who are wary of political blowback if the bill moves too far to the right.
After weeks of suggesting that only minor modifications would be acceptable, Ryan told reporters his team would incorporate changes to their proposal this week. His suggestion came as his Republican whip operation tested the initial support for the House measure among the GOP conference.
Meanwhile, members of the hard-right House Freedom Caucus declared that they believed they had enough commitments from their own allies to kill any attempt by Republican leaders to ram through the current bill without significant changes. They said that they intend to present to leadership an amendment on Friday that they say could unite conservatives and moderates.
“It’s up for us, moderates and conservatives, to come together,” said Freedom Caucus Chairman Mark Meadows coming out of a Wednesday evening meeting. “We’ve had conversations with moderates on what is important to them, and then we’ve look at what is important to conservatives and I think it we can work out something that accommodates” both.
Republican leaders are feeling the pressure, after the long-awaited repeal and replace measure faced skepticism — and outright resistance from some conservatives — when it was first unveiled two weeks ago. They're hoping to pass the bill next week, but winning over unhappy conservatives without writing a bill that's dead-on-arrival in the Senate will be difficult, even as party strategists warn that the GOP could lose seats in the coming midterms if they fail to fulfill their campaign promises to enact a repeal.
Ryan initially indicated that his call for changes was prompted by a budget analysis released Monday, which showed 24 million more people could go without insurance within a decade under the GOP health proposal. But POLITICO reported Tuesday night that President Donald Trump and top White House officials asked Ryan and his top lieutenants to amend the bill to win over conservatives who have criticized the bill as “Obamacare-lite.”
But moving the bill in either direction could be dicey for leadership. Rep. Luke Messer (R-Ind.), a GOP whip and the Republican Policy Committee Chair, said one potential change being considered — phasing out the Medicaid expansion sooner — would eliminate as many current supporters as it would win over critics.
“My perception is that changing that date would lose at least as many votes as it would gain,” Messer told POLITICO. “I think the current draft of the bill does a good job balancing the concerns … of creating a horizon upon which these changes can happen. To me, I think it’s best that that provision stay the way it is.”
The GOP replacement faces an immediate test on Thursday, when the House Budget Committee considers the measure. The panel is packed with conservative lawmakers, including three House Freedom Caucus members. And since every Democrat will vote against the bill, Chairwoman Diane Black (R-Tenn.) can only afford to lose four members to advance the bill.
Already, panel member David Brat (R-Va.) has said he’d vote against it. Another HFC member on the panel, Rep. Gary Palmer (R-Ala.), declined to say how he’d vote. Rep. John Faso, a moderate from New York who sits on the panel, said he was undecided and “waiting to see what it looks like.”
Multiple sources told POLITICO Trump himself was calling committee members to nudge them to support the bill despite their objections. The committee is also allowing their members to offer “motions” to the bill that will recommend changes to the document in the Rules Committee — suggesting they realize how discontented some of their panel members are.
Meadows indicated late Wednesday that the Freedom Caucus isn’t pushing members to reject the bill in committee, recognizing that if they want further chances to amend it, they need the bill to leave committee and reach the House floor.
At the Freedom Caucus meeting, though, members expressed optimism that they would win concessions eventually. Lawmakers toted copies of Trump's “Art of the Deal,” handed out by Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) to underscore his classic negotiating tactic: never accept the first offer. An aide carried a placard that quoted Trump’s book, encouraging negotiators to “use your leverage.”
Meanwhile, GOP leaders and their top allies debated which changes they should make to the bill. Sources told POLITICO that Republican leaders were open to nixing a 30 percent penalty on individuals who went without insurance for two months,though it's unclear if they would replace it with another measure to nudge people to sign up for coverage.
Others sources suggested Republicans are seriously considering a plan to provide more generous tax credits to Americans nearing age 65, who are facing sharply higher premiums under the current proposal. Republicans have faced significant pressure from advocates for older Americans, including the AARP, over estimates suggesting that Americans just under 65 years old could face substantially higher premiums.
Conservatives have also asked GOP leaders to consider allowing governors to require healthy Medicaid beneficiaries to work — or seek work — in order to qualify, another idea GOP leaders and the White House are pondering.
The White House has also leaned into conservative’s request to phase out the Medicaid expansion in early 2018 instead of at the close of 2019, which the current version of the bill would do. House GOP leadership has strongly resisted that move, worried that it could lead more centrist Republicans to flip from a lean-yes to a lean-no. But senior GOP sources said it was still in the mix as a potential amendment, and Vice President Mike Pence told Republican Study Committee members Wednesday the administration was open to the earlier phase-out.
Pence also visited with the moderate Tuesday Group Wednesday, and while he didn’t try to sell them on specific moves to the right, he warned them changes were coming.
House Majority Whip Steve Scalise skipped out on his own weekly meeting with his whip team to join Pence at the centrists’ gathering, a move signaling just how important he felt it was to gauge their concerns. Tuesday Group co-chairman Charlie Dent (R-Penn.) said membersexpressed worries about rumors that they may shorten the period in which people can enroll in expanded Medicaid programs. He also indicated that centrists feel the current bill provides insufficient tax credits for some people who could find it hard to afford insurance under the proposal.
Appearing at the full GOP conference meeting Wednesday night, Pence tried to rally all Republicans to get excited about repealing the health care law — despite the clear challenges ahead. He opened the conference by holding up his pointer finger and his thumb one inch apart and declaring: “We are this close to history!”
But the House has a lot of work to do until it gets there.
“Drama sells, and so I suspect he drama will continue,” Messer said. “I think we’ve all known from the beginning that this was not necessarily going to unroll smoothly.”
Source:- http://www.politico.com/story/2017/03/ryan-pence-obamacare-repeal-236113
