House Majority Whip Steve Scalise on Friday evening said two other House Freedom Caucus members now plan to support the American Health Care Act following recent improvements to the bill.
“Today at the meeting with the RSC chairman, Mark Walker, and other RSC members, there were two Freedom Caucus members there who said they’re going to vote for the bill, which included one member Gary Palmer who had voted against the bill in the budget committee yesterday,” Scalise told Fox News host Sean Hannity on Friday.
Scalise credited a change – to block-grant Medicaid – as the reason the staunch conservative lawmakers have come around to supporting the bill, which is expected to be voted on by the House next week.
“That’s a revolutionary reform conservatives have been wanting for decades. That’s now agreed to by the president and that will be in the bill,” Scalise added. “That’s what brought some of the freedom caucus members that were in the room today to say they’re now for the bill.”
Hannity said that addition was one change House Freedom Chairman Mark Meadows and his predecessor, Rep. Jim Jordan of North Carolina, had wanted to see implemented.
Scalise did not discuss whether the House GOP has the numbers necessary to pass the bill next week if it is brought up for a vote.
House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy announced Friday afternoon that lawmakers should expect to vote late next week on Republicans’ plan to replace Obamacare.
