{"id":96871,"date":"2017-04-04T23:46:43","date_gmt":"2017-04-05T03:46:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=96871"},"modified":"2019-03-26T00:56:01","modified_gmt":"2019-03-26T04:56:01","slug":"white-house-effort-to-revive-health-bill-gets-mixed-reaction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2017\/04\/04\/white-house-effort-to-revive-health-bill-gets-mixed-reaction\/","title":{"rendered":"White House effort to revive health bill gets mixed reaction"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A White House offensive to resurrect the moribund House Republican health care bill got an uneven reception Tuesday from GOP moderates and conservatives, leaving prospects shaky for the party to salvage one of its leading priorities. (Photo: The White House\/ Facebook<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

WASHINGTON \u2014 A White House offensive to resurrect the moribund House Republican health care bill got an uneven reception Tuesday from GOP moderates and conservatives, leaving prospects shaky for the party to salvage one of its leading priorities.<\/p>\n

Vice-President Mike Pence and other top administration officials were offering to let states request federal exemptions from insurance coverage requirements imposed by President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul. Top House conservatives and moderates met with Pence into the evening Tuesday in hopes of finding common ground, but the odds for success seemed long.<\/p>\n

At the White House, Pence said he and President Donald Trump \u201cremain confident that working with the Congress we will repeal and replace Obamacare,\u201d while White House spokesman Sean Spicer said Trump wanted an agreement, if possible.<\/p>\n

\u201cI’m not going to raise expectations, but I think that there are more and more people coming to the table with more and more ideas about how to grow that vote,\u201d Spicer said.<\/p>\n

But there was no evidence that the proposal won over any GOP opponents who’d forced Trump and party leaders to beat an unceremonious retreat on their bill on March 24, when they cancelled a House vote that was doomed to failure.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to make sure that when we go, we have the votes to pass this bill,\u201d House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., told reporters. He said talks were in \u201cthe conceptual stage\u201d and declined to predict a vote before Congress leaves town shortly for a two-week recess \u2014 when lawmakers could face antagonistic grilling from voters at town hall meetings.<\/p>\n

Later in the day, Rep. Steve Scalise, R-La., his party’s chief vote counter, said talks were not at \u201ca place where there is consensus\u201d on health care and indicated a vote this week was unlikely.<\/p>\n

Under the White House proposal, states could apply for a federal waiver from a provision in Obama’s statute obliging insurers to cover \u201cessential health benefits,\u201d including mental health, maternity and substance abuse services. The current version of the GOP legislation would erase that coverage requirement but let states reimpose it themselves, language that is opposed by many moderates.<\/p>\n

In addition, the White House would let states seek an exemption to the law’s provision banning insurers from charging higher premiums for seriously ill people. Conservatives have argued that such restrictions inflate consumers’ costs.<\/p>\n

Reaction from rank-and-file GOP lawmakers was mixed. Moderate Rep. Frank LoBiondo, R-N.J., and conservative Rep. Mo Brooks, R-Ala., each said they remained \u201cno\u201d votes, with Brooks saying states should be allowed to opt out of Obama’s insurance requirements without seeking federal permission.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is wrong to require the states to come to Washington, D.C., on bended knee,\u201d Brooks said.<\/p>\n

Rep. Jim Renacci, R-Ohio, was among several moderates warning that a quick vote would be counter-productive.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf leadership hasn’t learned the lessons of the failures of two weeks ago, then they’ll bring something forward where nobody knows about it and try and get it passed,\u201d Renacci said.<\/p>\n

Even so, some members of the House Freedom Caucus, the hard-right group whose opposition helped sink the Republican bill last month, were showing signs of accepting less than many originally wanted. The group’s leader, Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., said talks were boiling down to curbing several of Obama’s coverage requirements \u2014 a far cry from the full repeal of the statute that many initially preferred.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt perhaps is as much of a repeal as we can get done,\u201d Meadows told reporters. He added, \u201cThat’s the calculation we have to make.\u201d<\/p>\n

Similarly, some moderates whose opposition was also instrumental in the legislation’s failure expressed cautious optimism that the White House offer would produce results.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have to do things that will win people from both sides of the spectrum. Of course it’s hard,\u201d said Rep. Tom MacArthur, R-N.J., a leader of the Tuesday Group of House GOP moderates.<\/p>\n

A poll by the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation flashed a warning for the White House, showing that 3 in 4 Americans want the Trump administration to make Obama’s law work.<\/p>\n

About 2 in 3 were glad the House GOP bill didn’t pass last month. But people split evenly between wanting to keep or repeal Obama’s statute.<\/p>\n

The underlying House Republican bill would repeal much of Obama’s 2010 law. It would erase its tax fines for consumers who don’t buy policies, federal aid to help many afford coverage and Medicaid expansion for additional poor people.<\/p>\n

Instead, substitute GOP tax subsidies would be less generous than Obama’s for many lower earners and people in their 50s and 60s, the overall Medicaid program would be cut, tax boosts on higher earners would be ended and consumers who let coverage lapse would face 30 per cent premium hikes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON \u2014 A White House offensive to resurrect the moribund House Republican health care bill got an uneven reception Tuesday …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":95683,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1482,37,16,17],"tags":[16842,9746],"class_list":["post-96871","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-breaking","category-health","category-news","category-news-w","tag-health-bill","tag-white-house","mauthors-alan-fram","mauthors-the-associated-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96871","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=96871"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96871\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":206810,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96871\/revisions\/206810"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/95683"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=96871"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=96871"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=96871"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}