White House, lawmakers adrift over reviving health bill

No timeline or specific changes have been unveiled from the new rounds of party discussions, although White House officials talked up progress inside the Republican Party on resuscitating the GOP health care bill Wednesday.

But they acknowledged it does not ready the legislation for a vote.

The 2010 law created a temporary high-risk pool, called the Pre-Existing Condition Insurance Plan, which operated from mid-2010 until December 31, 2013, and received $5 billion to help cover consumers’ costs. “To keep advancing our efforts, the Rules Committee will meet tomorrow to mark up language that would add this to the bill”. “But this amendment alone is real progress and it will help us build momentum for delivering on our pledge to the country”.

The lack of process was another gripe the three expressed – if the earlier bill had been properly vetted and not quickly pushed through, it may have passed.

But as the week moved along and Pence and his team put proposals on the table created to bring the House Freedom Caucus into the fold, it had become abundantly clear to leaders that the efforts weren’t helping the overall vote count – and instead were likely hurting it.

“It is a major failure that a high priority of President Trump and the congressional Republican leadership leads to no bill, and the bill as proposed becomes unpopular even among their own voters”, said Robert Blendon, a professor at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, who follows opinion trends on health care.

Some Republicans said they are ready to cut their recess short if a deal is struck. I would hope it will not be indicative of what [they do] on the continuing resolution, ‘ Pelosi said Thursday, according to The Hill.

“The reality is we’re still meeting to find [the] ultimate conclusion before we can go vote on this bill, and we’re not there yet, obviously”, said Rep. Tom MacArthur (R-N.J.), co-chair of the moderate Tuesday Group. “More importantly it’s a good idea”. It may well be that some of it doesn’t get fully resolved in the House but a bill that introduces the waiver idea nonetheless makes it out to the Senate sometime soon, where it might be further worked out.

The money would be on top of a $100 billion fund already in the GOP bill that states could use for a variety of purposes, including high-risk insurance pools where people with medical problems can get coverage. Tuesday Group lawmakers insisted they’d been promised nothing more than giving states the opportunity to wave some Obamacare regulatory requirements like essential health benefits, which set standards of the kind of coverage an insurer must provide.

In addition to possibly dooming Trumpcare for a second time, the flap speaks to the growing power of Congress’ faction of Republican moderates. Michael Needham, CEO of the advocacy group Heritage Action, accused House moderates of “intransigence” and said they “clearly want to keep Obamacare in place”.

But conservatives still see the ability for states to opt out of the regulations as key to winning their support for the bill.

Mark Meadows comes out of a closed-door meeting with other House Freedom Caucus members on March 23 in Washington.

Arrington said his ideology is more aligned with the Freedom Caucus, but understands a flawless bill won’t get passed through the budget reconciliation process. “Really right now, it’s important that we get it done”.

For example, a woman with cancer may be charged more for coverage than a healthy customer, so she therefore may only be able to afford a plan that doesn’t cover chemotherapy, the New York Times explained.

Asked about the waiver proposal during the news conference, Ryan declined to offer an opinion.