Health Care Vote Pushed Back to Friday
WASHINGTON, DC — No deal. No vote. At least not yet for the Republican health care plan that would repeal and replace Obamacare.
Rifts within the GOP have put the legislation in limbo, and some within the party say that, despite efforts from the White House, the votes aren’t there to pass.
“Here we are, tonight, continuing to debate this in good faith,” said Rep. Mark Meadows.
The House was supposed to vote on the Republican’s American Health Care Act on Thursday, but a vote on Trumpcare has been pushed back, at least until Friday.
“It’s only politics, because we have a great bill,” said President Trump on Thursday. “And I think we have a very good chance. But it’s only politics.”
“We have not gotten enough of our members to get to ‘yes’ at this point, under what we’re currently considering,” said Rep. Meadows.
Meadows, a Republican from North Carolina’s 11th district is the leader of the Freedom Caucus, the group holding the key to any final agreement in the House. President Trump met with caucus members Thursday morning to rally support.
“We continue to make progress every day,” said White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer. “We walked out with more members in support of the American Health Care Act today than we started the day with.”
“I think it’s going to take some clear thinking,” said Rep. Robert Pittenger from Washington, DC. “Some reasonable minds.”
Republicans can’t lose more than 21 votes in the house and still pass the bill. Right now there may be as many as 40 “no” votes. Some in the Republican rank and file feel they’ve been cut out of the process.
Pittenger disagrees.
“We’ve had four different committee hearings work on this,” said the Republican. “We’ve had plenty of discussion in all of our conferences. It’s been a very, very open process.”
March 23rd is the seventh anniversary of Obamacare, the law Republicans desperately want to repeal and replace.
Democrats continue to call those rushed efforts a mistake.
“No, I’m not okay with it,” said Rep. Elijah Cummings, a Democrat from Maryland. “As a matter of fact, they’re actually making the bill even worse than it was before.”
Members of the House Freedom Caucus don’t believe the Republican bill goes far enough in dismantling Obamacare.
Billionaire GOP donors the Koch brothers have pledged millions of reelection dollars to House Republicans who vote against the American Health Care Act.
