The House GOP health bill faces more defections than it can withstand from inside the party’s own conference, after a spokeswoman for a conservative caucus announced several no votes on Wednesday, and multiple members have warned that several moderates are also still opposed to the legislation in its most recent form.
“BREAKING: more than 25 Freedom Caucus ‘No’s’ on AHCA — group says ‘start over,'” Alyssa Farah, the House Freedom Caucus spokeswoman, tweeted Wednesday afternoon. When combining the current composition of the House and the expected absence of Democrat representative Bobby Rush for a vote on Thursday, Republicans can stand to have 22 of its members vote with all Democrats against the measure and still have it pass, 215-213.
The Freedom Caucus’s chairman, Rep. Mark Meadows, said he remained against the American Health Care Act, but that he was “hopeful” it could be changed further before a full chamber vote. The measure went before the House Rules Committee Wednesday to be formally amended and cleared.
The alterations to the AHCA the committee was expected to adopt, including expanded health tax credits targeted to older consumers and further Medicaid tweaks, were designed to placate representatives on both wings of the party. But many conservatives are yet unsatisfied that the legislation leaves several of Obamacare’s regulations, including mandates on insurance companies that the members say drive up costs, untouched. The bill’s defenders have said generally that the AHCA cannot address certain Affordable Care Act provisions because of its privileged track in the Senate, where it can pass with only a simple majority because of its budget-related status. Non-budget related items would be left to what House speaker Paul Ryan and top officials pushing the legislation call a “phase three.”
The 25-plus no votes declared by the Freedom Caucus potentially have company. Rep. Scott DesJarlais said during the afternoon that “[m]y sense is there are 35-40 votes that are still no,” according to a report.
