House Republicans have cautioned that the Obamacare reform bill is still short of the 217 votes it will need to pass, even as the White House works to portray a vote on GOP healthcare legislation as imminent.
A top House Republican aide told the Washington Examiner that the White House’s assertion earlier Monday that the bill was ready to be brought to the floor was “not helpful” to the process.
“It’s just been bizarre that they’re kind of pushing these votes and they’ve been consistently wrong,” the GOP aide said.
White House spokesman Sean Spicer added at his daily press briefing that there aren’t enough votes. “We’re not there yet,” he said.
The disconnect between congressional leadership and the Trump administration comes as healthcare negotiations enter their eighth week. While conservative members had originally prevented the legislation from passing in March, centrist Republicans are now the ones weighing whether to back the Obamacare repeal and replacement plan.
Gary Cohn, a top adviser to President Trump, declared Monday on CBS “This Morning” that the healthcare legislation had attracted enough votes to advance.
But the Republican aide disputed that claim, noting a vote has not yet been scheduled because support for the Obamacare reform bill is still in flux. The aide acknowledged that discussions had yielded substantial progress toward lining up 216 members behind the legislation.
Spicer refused to say that Cohn misspoke, but said he didn’t want to “get ahead” of House Republicans.
Separately, a House Freedom Caucus aide said Rep. Mark Meadows, who chairs the conservative bloc, had delivered all but two or three of his members and had “actually helped flip” two conservatives who aren’t Freedom Caucus members.
“I think it should be able to pass by [the] end of week,” the Freedom Caucus aide told the Washington Examiner.
The White House declined to echo Cohn’s optimism Monday. Press secretary Sean Spicer said the bill would only be brought to the floor “if the circumstances present themselves.”
“We’re not there yet,” Spicer said before noting that changes to the Obamacare reform legislation had persuaded some Republican opponents to support the bill.
The deal struck by Meadows and Rep. Tom MacArthur, chairman of the centrist Tuesday Group, would allow states to opt out of certain Obamacare regulations but would leave those rules intact for states that want to maintain them.
Opponents of that approach question whether partially repealing Obamacare rules will effectively nullify the ones still in place, such as a regulation that requires insurance companies to sell coverage to people with pre-existing conditions.
