Amid unsparing challenges from conservative critics and policy wonks, Vice President Mike Pence said Tuesday that the House GOP’s new health care legislation is “the bill” to begin undoing and supplanting Obamacare, and has the White House’s backing.
“As the legislative process goes forward, the president and I believe that the American Health Care Act is the framework for reform,” Pence told reporters after meeting with Senate Republican leadership. “We’re certainly open to improvements and recommendations in the legislative process. But this is the bill.”
Pence added that President Trump expects to work “very directly” with both chambers of Congress to advance the measure, which has faced pushback from many on the right for being a watered-down version of the law it would partly replace. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, however, said unequivocally that the act’s policy is preferable to what already exists.
“The status quo being unacceptable, the president, the administration, the House, and the Senate have come together behind a proposal we are confident will be an improvement over the status quo,” he said. It’s his “hope” the Senate will receive and act on a House-passed version of the bill—which has yet to be scored for cost and will only start to travel its legislative path Wednesday—before the upper chamber breaks for a week-long Easter recess in April.
It will have to overcome conservative opposition first, which could be an issue in both houses of Congress. Leaders of the House Freedom Caucus and Republican Study Committee have expressed reservations about the legislation’s tax-credit system that would succeed the health care law’s premium subsidies, as well as its gentle rollback of Medicaid expansion. Sens. Mike Lee and Rand Paul have already announced opposition to the HCA, instead favoring a full repeal first and then a fresh debate about replacement options. Their stance, as well as the position of wary Republican senators in states whose governors expanded Medicaid, complicates the GOP’s path to the 50 votes necessary to approve the measure. The party can only lose two Republican yeses.
In response, congressional leaders and White House officials were building a case for the act throughout Tuesday. Health and Human Services secretary Tom Price, a former House budget chairman and leader on health care reform, sent the heads of the Ways and Means, and Energy and Commerce Committees a favorable letter. Those chairmen, Kevin Brady and Greg Walden, respectively, have committee jurisdiction over the bill, and were scheduled to join House speaker Paul Ryan for a press conference touting it during the afternoon.
