GOP Health Care Bill Gains Momentum From Key House Republicans

In a meeting with members of the conservative Republican Study Committee, Trump endorsed two provisions affecting Medicaid, the federal health program for the poor and disabled that would see $880 billion in cuts over the next decade under the current GOP plan.

US President Donald Trump has said Barack Obama’s Affordable Healthcare Act is “dead” and “about ready to implode”, as Republican leaders prepare a vote to repeal and replace the legislation.

“[After repeal] we can have a separate vote on replacement legislation that will deliver lower costs, better care, and greater access to the American people”, Paul said.

Republican leaders plan to bring the American Health Care Act to the floor of the House for a vote next Thursday, and President Trump is now publicly applying his deal-making skills to ensure passage.

One of the most controversial components of Obamacare was that working Americans were forced to buy health insurance or else pay a fine when they filed their taxes called the SRP. “A mandatory work requirement should be just that”, Meadows said.

Even as Price spoke to reporters before a morning meeting with House Republicans, it remained unclear if or when top Republicans could resolve the party’s internal wrangling over the high-profile measure. In his speech, President Trump promised to lower the cost of health insurance with his GOP Plan that he hopes that Congress will approve. Collins’ opposition leaves the bill short of the support it needs in the Senate unless it changes, since GOP leaders can only lose two votes.

The not-yet-amended bill now exists as a wish sandwich for House Republicans who are sitting on the fence. Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price said “we disagree strenuously” and the CBO estimate is “just not believable”.

Donald Trump made this promise on the campaign trail: “I’m not going to cut Social Security like every other Republican, and I’m not going to cut Medicare or Medicaid”.

“Sometimes I think they’re afraid to vote over there”, Mr. Cole said.

Critics say the proposed bill would make health insurance more expensive for older Americans and those with limited incomes.

The latest government sign-up numbers missed Obama’s target of 13.8 million people for 2017.

Trump and House leadership did make significant progress Friday afternoon when the president announced that some members of the Republican Study Committee were ready to support the legislation.

Cotton’s stance on the health legislation also reflects realities on the ground in his state, where health advocates credit the Affordable Care Act with cutting how much hospitals are spending on care for uninsured patients and for a dramatic drop in the state’s uninsured rate.

The official national figure of 12.2 million excludes 765,000 people signed up under a related Obama-era law used by NY and Minnesota.

Several Republicans have said they can’t support the law as it stands and are demanding changes.

And for all the attention focused on conservative gripes, the changes Trump agreed to move the bill (optionally) rightward are a further problem for the House moderates who are being asked to commit political suicide.

“We tried to intellectually engage but sometimes you have to take other actions to get attention, and it worked”, he said.

“This proposal to end the Medicaid program as we know it would lock Virginia into the very lean and mean program that we have now into perpetuity”, Michael Cassidy, president and CEO of The Commonwealth Institute, a Richmond-based fiscal policy analysis group that focuses on issues that impact low-income and middle-class people, said in an interview earlier this week. Rand Paul, R-Ky., among conservative lawmakers who say the House GOP bill is too timid. “I watch, and I say that’s not the bill we’re passing”.