House GOP Leaders Cancel Vote on Health Care Bill

He revived his campaign rallies to remind the voters, and their representatives, of the GOP’s promises.

“They won’t realize that they have worthless insurance until they get sick and it’s too late”, he said in a speech on the House floor.

According to the Congressional Budget Office, the bill would ultimately lower premiums by double digits.

House leaders seemed to be calculating that at crunch time enough dissidents will decide against sabotaging the bill, Trump’s young presidency and the House GOP leadership’s ability to set the agenda.

Then this morning, ahead of an expected vote in the House today, Trump posted a tweet aimed at that caucus.

A close Trump ally, Rep. Chris Collins (R., N.Y.), said that if House Republicans didn’t act Friday, they likely wouldn’t get another bite at Obamacare until 2019, after the next elections. “Well, we’ll reflect”, he said.

In reality, frantic Thursday morning negotiations were unable to reach a compromise with House Freedom Caucus, whose 40-some members withdrew support on Wednesday, in a fight over “Essential Health Benefits”.

House Speaker Paul Ryan visited the White House on Friday to give Mr Trump an update on the numbers, with United States media reporting that there were not enough. After 2020, states that expanded Medicaid would no longer receive enhanced federal funding to cover low-income adults like they did under Obamacare, and states that haven’t expanded would be immediately barred from doing so. His reputation as some sort of master negotiator is going to take a hit no matter what happens, but why demand a roll call so that the media can gleefully count every last “no”? ‘Honestly, a loss is not acceptable, folks’.

This is the danger of a president who is so disinterested in policy particulars, especially when, like Trump, he expects to maintain a central role in the process. It made you wonder who wouldn’t be on it.

The northeast Republicans are the ones to watch, he said.

For a president who frequently holds grudges, Trump has yet to openly threaten dissenters with potential primary challenges. And I think the losers are Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer because now they own Obamacare. For them, the elimination of the health insurer tax makes the GOP bill appealing, says Ana Gupte, a health analyst at the investment bank Leerink.

In an embarrassing and stinging setback hours earlier, leaders abruptly postponed the vote because a rebellion by conservatives and moderates would have doomed the measure.

“I have heard loud and clear from thousands of my constituents that they want a health care system that is more affordable and works for them”, he said. “Trump has said that his next big priority is tax reform, but he will find that this issue is just as complicated and contentious as health care reform”.

Trump responded to the healthcare chaos with an ultimatum. The group’s opposition was seen as a public rebuke to both the White House and House GOP leadership.

‘We’re still willing to talk.

The news came after a wave of Republicans walked off the bill when the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office released an updated report saying amendments drafted to earn GOP support would cost billions more without increasing coverage.

“The president just came here and knocked the ball out of the park”, said Speaker Ryan.

Speaking on “The C4 Show” Thursday on WBAL NewsRadio 1090, Harris said the sticking point is getting rid of the federal government’s health plan mandates. Trump indicated if this version of Trumpcare was not passed by the House, he would move on to tax reform and let the GOP live with Obamacare for the duration of this Congress.

While lawmakers have made some adjustments to the bill to please conservatives, GOP leaders and the president have cast the legislation as a binary choice, arguing that this is the only change to make the reforms they promised.

Why are they against the bill?

Even if the legislation passes in the House, it faces an uncertain future in the Senate, where Republicans have expressed misgivings. We learned a lot about some very arcane rules in, obviously, both the Senate and in the House.