Why the Freedom Caucus insists on repealing EHB and community rating mandates

It was moderates, they explained, who were unwilling to compromise on this fairly reasonable request.

Now, Matt Fuller of the Huffington Post tweeted on Tuesday that he was “getting the sense from GOP aides that eliminating community rating is not gonna fly.”

In their interview with us last week, Meadows and Jordan explained that their single most important criterion in a replacement bill is whether it will lower premiums. As they see it, those two mandates “are the two that most tied premium costs,” as Jordan told us.

“The real reason why people want Obamacare repealed,” Meadows explained, “is because their premiums went up. They could care less about the policy. If the policy had been in and the premiums went down, they’d say ‘let’s keep Obamacare.'”

A CBO report on the AHCA estimated premiums would temporarily spike 15 to 20 percent on average if it were passed into law.

In that case, average Americans experiencing premium increases “will make a judgment call,” Meadows warned, deciding that the “Republican plan didn’t work.'”

Pressed on whether the caucus’s demands will make it more difficult for people with pre-existing conditions to obtain coverage, Meadows explained, “we’ve actually made suggestions to strengthen this aspect.”

Meadows continued:

The $100 billion that’s in there, that if indeed the insurance company says that your premium is going to be too high on a state-by-state basis, they go into the high-risk which allows the cost sharing, which allows for those deductibles to be paid for. And so functionally, if your premiums went too much from a preexisting standpoint where you couldn’t afford to pay for it, the federal government, in this bill that actually has a backstop that pays for that at a state level.”

As negotiations progress, expect this issue to be a central point of conversation on the Hill and in the media.

Emily Jashinsky is a commentary writer for the Washington Examiner.