House Republicans trained their fire on each other after Friday’s failure to pass an Obamacare repeal bill, which had to be pulled amid a divided GOP that couldn’t come together on a unified plan to start dismantling the law.
Some GOP members believed that demands from the conservative House Freedom Caucus, which included adding insurance regulations that may not have gotten through the Senate, were the reason for the failure. But others blamed the GOP leadership for failing to get the bill across the finish line.
“The Freedom Caucus won. They got Obamacare forever,” said Rep. Michael Burgess, R-Texas, after leaving the conference meeting where House Speaker Paul Ryan announced he didn’t have the votes to pass the bill.
“The House Freedom Caucus just singlehandedly saved Obamacare,” tweeted Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill.
Other members were upset that not only the caucus but moderate colleagues weren’t on board and questioned the political impact of the decision for them.
The House Freedom Caucus just single-handedly saved #Obamacare.
— Adam Kinzinger (@RepKinzinger) March 24, 2017
“Everybody’s entitled to their own opinion and their own vote, but now we all have to go back and work to explain that to our constituency and say why you were for or against getting rid of Obamacare,” said Rep. Doug Collins of Georgia, a GOP conference vice chairman.
Rep. Mike Kelly, R-Pa., a key Trump ally who owns a car dealership empire, compared the Freedom Caucus’ negotiating tactics to that of unserious car buyers. The conservatives kept moving the goal post of what concessions they wanted and ultimately a bloc of them still balked even after Trump and House leaders gave them more Thursday night.
Kelly said he would spend hours with a prospective buyer who then would ultimately leave the lot without purchasing a vehicle. If he had known they were just “window shopping” he wouldn’t have spent that much time with them.
The Freedom Caucus, which includes about 40 lawmakers, has been against the bill since it was announced earlier this month. They believe it didn’t go far enough toward repealing Obamacare and have sought to put the law’s insurance regulations as part of a repeal bill.
Republicans acceded to some of their demands, including adding a repeal of the federal requirement for insurers to cover essential health benefits and leaving that up to states. But that wasn’t enough for some members who were still opposed to the bill and wanted the full regulations to be pulled.
Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., the House Freedom Caucus chairman, had planned to file an amendment that would have eliminated the prohibition against lifetime caps and other insurance regulations.
Meadows wouldn’t comment after the conference.
Members of the caucus defended their negotiations and laid some of the blame on the House leadership for not bringing enough groups in at the start.
“From the beginning of the process, I think that the way it was set up did not bring the disparate parts of the conference together,” said Rep. Justin Amash, R-Mich.
Rep. Morgan Griffith, R-Va., a “yes” vote on the bill who is a member of the Freedom Caucus, said there were some things that Ryan “could have done differently.”
“Now the question is what were they, and I don’t know the answer to that one,” he said. “Obviously something could have been done differently that might have changed this. But what it is? Nobody really knows.”
When asked whether he believes Ryan should remain as speaker, Griffith remained supportive.
“There weren’t any questions, nor should there be,” he said.
Al Weaver and Nicole Duran contributed to this report.
