House Freedom Caucus Chairman Mark Meadows and HFC founder Jim Jordan visited the Washington Examiner on Thursday March 30. Here are some of the highlights from our discussion on healthcare reform:
JIM JORDAN: [W]hen you read the legislation [the American Health Care Act], it doesn’t do what we said [on the campaign trail]. It is that simple. We get all tied up and wound up around all kinds of other things. Look at the four corners of the document. Does it fully repeal Obamacare? No. Will it bring down premiums? No. Every conservative healthcare policy expert in the country knows that this bill is not going to work the way it is drafting; plain and simple.
All we’re trying to do is actually fix the legislation. The whole world thinks oh, because the bill got postponed, this town is going crazy and oh my goodness, the sky is gonna fall. It’s not. Let’s just fix it and quit worrying about tweets and statements and blame, and let’s focus on the actual document. After all, we’re legislators; that’s what we’re supposed to be. That’s the attitude we’ve taken….
MARK MEADOWS: The bill does not block grant Medicaid. It gives you an option to block grant Medicaid. I want to make sure that when we look at some of these things, it gives you an option to force a work requirement. So when we look at these things, I want to make sure because there’s a whole lot of narratives out there on what it would do and what it doesn’t do. Options don’t normally get enforced; mandates do.
JORDAN: We told the American people we were going to repeal Obamacare. We told the American people we were going to try to bring down healthcare premiums, bring back full [inaudible] insurance. And once again, this legislation doesn’t do it. That has always been the bottom line. And I would argue the American people are smart. They figured this legislation out. There’s a reason why 83 percent of the population doesn’t like it.
There’s a reason why only 17 percent of our fellow citizens think this bill makes any sense. So maybe, maybe when you have a process that produces this policy and the politics are such that only 17 percent of the country supports it, you might want to go back and redo the process. And as I said to our conference on Tuesday morning, let’s get it right now. Let’s develop a template for actually having a process that produces good policy. Because you all understand what’s coming.
I’ve been around this place now ten years. I’ve never seen a year where you had more big issues coming. We’ve got the healthcare issue; obviously we’re talking about that now. We’ve got the CR coming in less than four weeks. You then have a budget, which is not going to be easy. After that you’re going to have second reconciliation designed to deal with tax reform. Then you’re going to have the Appropriations process. Somewhere in there you will do an infrastructure bill. Then you have a final Appropriations bill sometime before September 30th. And oh by the way, after that you have a debt ceiling.
So my attitude is let’s work this out now and actually produce good policy. Let’s get the template right for the six other big things that are coming. I guess I look at this like the glass is half full; look at it positively. This is a chance for us to figure out how we are going to work together to accomplish what we told the American people but everyone else is oh….
Everybody calm down. My background is in wrestling. You start panicking when you’re behind by a point with 20 seconds to go and you’ve got to take the guy down. You’re not going to get the big down. So let’s just everyone relax and get focused on what we have to do.
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JORDAN: A majority of Republicans don’t like it. This is a bill that didn’t fully repeal Obamacare. Even Krauthammer said it’s Obamacare-lite. This is a bill that didn’t bring down premiums. Even the CBO said premiums were going to continue to rise for the next three and a half years. And this is a bill that did not unite the Republican Party, as evidenced by the fact every major conservative organization in the country is opposed to it. All kinds of conservative publications have problems with it.
Every conservative healthcare policy expert has problems with it. And when you have that kind of mix, it leads to a 17 percent approval rate. But even Republicans aren’t supportive of this legislation. I talked to folks in our district, talked to folks in Mark’s district; most Republicans are like wait a minute, this is not what we signed up for. This is not what we had in mind in 2010, 2014, and 2016 elections.
Q: Is it possible to find a bill that will bring on enough of your Freedom Caucus and not lose moderate Republicans?
JORDAN: Mark has been working his tail off to try to do that, in court if possible.
MEADOWS: The Obamacare mandates, there are 12 of them. The leadership plan had two of them repealed; two of 12. The Freedom Caucus has asked for two to be included in the repeal, which would bring us to a total of four of the 12 Obamacare mandates. That’s our ask. These two Obamacare mandates repealed in exchange for yes votes, and that’s not being reported. You know, it’s well, you just can’t get to yes; you can’t get there.
We’re talking about asking for a little over 15 percent of the Obamacare mandates to be repealed and we can’t get a yes from that? We’re willing to give the moderates something they want, whether it’s on Medicaid expansion or additional monies for perhaps something that they see that is being pulled out. But in the end, the request is pretty simple: 2 of 12 Obamacare mandates when we campaigned on the fact that we were going to repeal all 12.
I mean it’s frustrating because the narrative is out there that all of these different things, we move the goal posts. I know that you all heard it. But we have. We’ve moved it much closer so they can barely – all they have to do is kick a little chip shot through the goal posts to get this across the finish line. And yet, somehow it seems to be elusive.
Q: So is that a goal post? If they include your two things, then you’ll be on board? Or the Freedom Caucus members will be on board?
MEADOWS: With the text that actually repeals those two mandates, the EHBs and community rating, it would bring the vast majority of the Freedom Caucus to yes. [Turns to Jordan] Would you agree with that?
JORDAN Every major health policy expert says the two regulations that the chairman is talking about are the two that most tied premium costs rising. So you have to get those repealed. You have to get rid of them. The other one is this thing called community rating, which is … we have all these fancy words and views around here but basically get rid of community rating you allow insurance to be insurance. I always equate it to the auto insurance.
In auto insurance, you can charge the 21-year-old with the red Corvette who’s had five tickets, you can charge him more than you charge the 55-year-old grandmother, right? That’s how insurance works. Under community rating, you can’t and what happens is everyone pays the 21-year-old rate. That’s the simplest way for people to understand it. What we’re saying is you’ve got to get rid of that if you’re going to bring down the costs. Mark is right.
We started off let’s clean repeal and build from the clean repeal the bill we passed 15 months ago. But we’re now willing to say look, if you can just do the things that will actually bring down premiums, and then we’ll go from there and at least we’re doing something positive for the people who elected us to deal with this. We’re getting at the heart of the Obamacare regulations that are driving up costs.
Q: ARE YOU READY TO GET OVER YOUR OBJECTIONS TO THE REFUNDABLE TAX CREDIT?
MEADOWS: We got over that three weeks ago…. Part of it is trying to negotiate in good faith. I think that’s the ultimate, is that we saw from many of our colleagues that was a non-starter. We fully believe that we’re creating a new entitlement by doing that. That being said, our main goal, in fact our only goal, is to lower premiums. If that’s a function that doesn’t lower premiums, it’s a cost which as a fiscal conservative, I would [object to].
But it’s not something that fundamentally changes premiums. So we came back to say all right, let’s look at the Obamacare mandates and repeal those. And so what started with six objections has ended up to be really fundamentally the one request where people say two requests in terms of repealing those mandates.
Q: On community rating, the obvious criticism from the left and a lot of healthcare policy types is that you’re keeping the guaranteed issue … but getting rid of community rating, then effectively you’re making it difficult for people with previous conditions to get coverage because what’s stopping the insurer from saying okay, you have diabetes; we’ll offer you insurance but give us $5,000 a month.
MEADOWS: So in this bill, and we’ve actually made suggestions to strengthen this aspect of it, we address that portion. 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 back stop that pays for that at a state level. So it’s a valid point—if we hadn’t had the other aspect of this in the bill that would actually address that.
JORDAN: Yes, the safety net provision that we call high-risk pool, and $100 billion that’s in the legislation is designed to deal with that.
MEADOWS: And we added another $15 billion at least.
JORDAN: And if you do it frankly like the state of Maine, it’s sort of invisible and it’s been very successful in that state from what they tell me.
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JORDAN: Yeah, why the artificial deadline, why the rush? Why not a real process. You’d have to ask the Speaker that. But I don’t think it served us at all, and I don’t think as I said earlier it will serve as we deal with these other big issues coming.
MEADOWS: So am I surprised that the narrative that is out there is that this was an inclusive, member-driven initiative? I’m surprised at that because even the members on the committees of jurisdiction would indicate that they read about the bill first when it was leaked to the press. So you can’t have it both ways. You can’t have a member-driven process with a bill that you read about in Politico. And so am I surprised?
Now, was there a lot of meetings where we talked and had great conversations where we talked about issues? Yes. I mean I’ll be the first to admit that. But those are not bill tax and that’s not how it’s affecting your district, your people in terms of real policy. We can all say that we’re for safety nets and we’re for lower premiums….
Timothy P. Carney, The Washington Examiner’s commentary editor, can be contacted at [email protected]. His column appears Tuesday nights on washingtonexaminer.com.
