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How Trump might doom the GOP health care bill
Trump may move GOP health care bill to the right, dooming it in the Senate
Story highlights
- Sens. Cruz and Lee met with White House officials Saturday in Florida
- House is scheduled to vote on repeal bill Thursday
- Bill in current form unlikely to pass Senate
(CNN)The
Trump administration, under pressure from conservative lawmakers,
appears increasingly open to changing legislation repealing and
replacing Obamacare in order to placate the right -- but that may
guarantee at least this version of the bill is as good as dead in the
Senate.
The political calculation is setting off a domino effect on Capitol Hill.
Just
days to go before a Thursday vote on the House GOP bill, moderate
Republicans have already expressed deep reservations about making
drastic reforms to the current health care system. Making additional
changes to satisfy conservatives is certain to strengthen opposition
among centrist Republicans.
But moving the bill to the right dooms the proposal in the Senate, where the GOP has a razor-thin majority.
For
now, the White House appears fixated on shepherding the bill repealing
the Affordable Care Act through the House, with a vote on the seven-year
anniversary of President Barack Obama signing the law. In its 11th hour
negotiations, Trump and his top deputies have made compromises to
appease the GOP's most conservative faction.
After
meeting with members of the conservative Republican Study Committee
this week, Trump announced that the lawmakers in the room who had
previously been "no" votes were now on board, thanks to legislative changes that the White House and House GOP leaders had agreed to.
The negotiations continued over the weekend.
Several
conservative lawmakers opposed to the House GOP health care bill --
Rep. Mark Meadows, chairman of the House Freedom Caucus, and Sens. Ted
Cruz and Mike Lee -- met with senior White House aides on Saturday at
Mar-a-Lago.
Trump himself did not
participate in the meeting, a White House official said. But the
President's senior most aides -- chief of staff Reince Priebus, chief
strategist Steve Bannon and policy aide Andrew Bremberg -- were present,
according to a senior Republican familiar with the meeting.
'Bannon is definitely our ally'
Cruz,
Lee and Meadows made the case for going further with the American
Health Care Act, the name of the bill introduced by House Speaker Paul
Ryan and other senior Republicans, and backed by Trump. According to the
Republican source, discussion included phasing out Medicaid expansion
earlier and repealing Obamacare rules like essential health benefits and
requiring insurers to allow 26-year-olds to stay on his or her parents'
insurance -- one of the most popular provisions of the Affordable Care
Act.
Notably, Bannon appeared receptive to the conservative contingent, while Priebus and Bremberg advocated for Ryan's approach.
"Bannon is definitely our ally in the White House," the Republican source said.
Health
and Human Services Secretary Tom Price said on ABC about the
negotiations in the House: "It's a fine needle that needs to be thread.
There's no doubt about it."
It's
not clear whether the White House will announce further concessions
following the Saturday gathering in Florida. A Freedom Caucus source
simply told CNN on Sunday that the negotiations are continuing "in good
faith."
But giving more ground to
conservatives risks a hemorrhaging of support from House Republican
moderates, who are already uncomfortable with and have said they cannot
support the legislation in its current form.
Particularly
troubling to more centrist Republicans is the Congressional Budget
Office's prediction last week that the House legislation would lead to
some 24 million more people being uninsured by 2026 than under
Obamacare, as well as the projection that premiums would spike for
vulnerable demographic groups like older and low-income Americans.
DOA in the Senate?
A more conservative version of the bill that Ryan originally unveiled would most certainly be dead on arrival in the Senate.
Multiple
Senate Republicans have publicly aired grave concerns about
restructuring Medicaid. Under Obamacare, 31 states opted to expand the
program for low-income adults and 16 of those states have Republican
governors.
GOP Sen. Susan Collins
of Maine, for example, said this week that she could not support the
House bill in its current form, particularly because of its effects on
the ability of low-income seniors to afford health insurance.
The White House, too, has admitted that the House bill would have trouble
in the Senate. Trump administration officials acknowledged to
Republican senators at a White House meeting earlier this week that
"they don't have the (Senate) votes to pass this in current form."
In
an interview on CBS' "Face the Nation" on Sunday, Cruz briefly
discussed his Mar-a-Lago visit, saying the meeting with the President's
team spanned three hours. He added that he had spoken multiple times
with Trump and Vice President Mike Pence about the bill.
"I am spending night and day meeting with House members, meeting with senators, meetings with the administration," Cruz said.
Cruz
and others have advocated publicly for a much more sweeping,
conservative bill, but said he had not managed to sway Trump yet. He
described Trump as willing to listen to everyone and that the bill was
still in an ongoing negotiation process.
"I think that the President right now is listening to the arguments on all sides," Cruz said.
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