House conservatives aren’t jumping on board with the Republican leadership’s healthcare plan despite cajoling over the last 36 hours from top lawmakers, and two prominent members are sending out the message that they’ll go their own way.
Rep. Mark Meadows and Rep. Jim Jordan, the first two chairmen of the House Freedom Caucus, said Wednesday they’re introducing a clean repeal of the Affordable Care Act and they refuse to get on board with the House GOP plan heading to committee Wednesday.
Jordan said on MSNBC that it’s fulfilling a promise to the American people.
“Let’s do what we told them we’re going to do,” he said. “Let’s do what they sent us here to do.”
The skeptical conservative lawmakers are angry House leadership didn’t wait for the Congressional Budget Office to analyze the bill and find out how much it would cost. Meadows said it also keeps in place a lot of the aspects of Obamacare that Americans have complained about.
Meadows said on CNN there isn’t a majority in the House at the moment to pass the new bill. “There is not 218 votes today,” he said, although it would only take 216 votes to pass it given the number of vacancies in this House.
“This bill just doesn’t do it,” he added. “It’s just one program that replaces a failed program and has a greater chance of failure.”
Meadows said he was perturbed by Rep. Jason Chaffetz’s comments on Tuesday that people might have to choose between getting a new phone and investing in health insurance. He took that as a tacit admission that premiums and costs could go up for Americans trying to get health insurance, and no plan Meadows will sign off on would force that kind of choice.
“Any GOP plan that gets 218 votes will not force them to make those kind of choices,” he said. “It will provide a kind of safety net. I know the president wants to do that, and we’re with him.”
