An influential GOP moderate warned House leadership not to take his vote and that of others like him for granted amid the horse-trading they and the White House are engaged in with lawmakers over the first phase of repealing and replacing the Affordable Care Act.
“We’re the majority makers,” Rep. Tom MacArthur, R-N.J., said of the Tuesday Group, to which he was elected co-chairman of earlier this year. “Most of us represent districts that are not slam-dunk Republican districts. And I think there’s a lot of work that gets done here on the backs of centrists Republicans that represent these kinds of districts.”
MacArthur said leadership needs the votes of his 54-member caucus to achieve its legislative agenda this Congress.
“The group is a critical part of moving all kinds of legislation,” MacArthur told reporters on Thursday. “Not just today but in the future — debt ceiling is coming up, tax reform, so I think the Tuesday Group is making its needs and priorities quite clear and are using the things at our disposable to make sure that we get heard,” he said.
MacArthur said he and leaders of other factions within the House Republican Conference are working together to ensure the GOP is able to keep its promise to repeal Obamacare.
“This discussion isn’t over,” he said. “Different groups of people are trying to influence the bill … I’m doing the same thing. And we’re in discussion with each other too.
“These are different tribes’ in the same family; don’t forget that,” he said, referring to the House Freedom Caucus and Republican Study Committee. “I meet with Mark Meadows, Mark Walker,” he said of those group’s leaders. “The three of us have lunch frequently with the Speaker, and we work together well.”
Conservatives want to move up the date for ending the Medicaid expansion Obamacare funded by two years. Moderates want to leave it at 2020.
“We’re all trying to get this right, and so is the administration,” MacArthur said.
“I would urge you not to create a divide where there isn’t one. We’re all trying to work towards a good solution; we all come at it from different solutions.”
The House Freedom Caucus is planning to offer a major amendment to the bill before it hits the floor.
On Wednesday night Walker said he thinks his 30-some-member caucus can accommodate moderates’ concerns.
“I think there is a path where we can work in a meaningful way to address Medicaid concerns and yet still address conservative concerns,” Walker said.
About half of the Tuesday Group met privately Wednesday evening with Vice President Mike Pence.
However, “there were no commitments” made by Pence during the discussion, said Rep. Charlie Dent, R-Pa., another Tuesday Group co-chairman.
