Free Republic

Twenty mostly centrist House Republicans who represent swing districts voted against the GOP’s legislation to repeal and replace the healthcare law on Thursday. Two more defections would have doomed the bill, signaling how tough a vote it was for many lawmakers. Only one member of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, freshman Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.), voted against the measure because it didn’t go far enough to fully repeal the healthcare law. Two other libertarian-minded conservatives, Reps. Thomas Massie (Ky.) and Walter Jones (N.C.), also opposed it. The defectors were primarily centrists who had trepidations about voting for the bill after...

After years of debate, the House on Thursday voted to repeal key parts of the Affordable Care Act and replace them with new provisions. The vote, which President Donald Trump was planning to tout as a big victory, sends the Republican-sponsored bill to gut Obamacare to the Senate for consideration. Follow Donald J. Trump ✔ @realDonaldTrump If victorious, Republicans will be having a big press conference at the beautiful Rose Garden of the White House immediately after vote! 2:07 PM - 4 May 2017 3,336 3,336 Retweets 14,365 14,365 likes But winning approval for the bill could be even more...

Two Republican lawmakers who had come out against the House bill to repeal the Affordable Care Act earlier this week reversed course on Wednesday and threw their support behind the plan after securing more money to help people with pre-existing medical conditions. Representatives Fred Upton of Michigan, an influential voice in Republican health policy, and Billy Long of Missouri, a close ally of President Trump’s, told reporters after a meeting with Mr. Trump on Wednesday that the latest revisions had won them over. Those included $8 billion in additional funds over five years to supplement the insurance of people with...

House Republicans look to have the votes they need to pass their embattled health care bill. All it took, apparently, was adding a few billion dollars to the bill, to provide cover to moderate lawmakers who had been reluctant to support it. This latest change, added to the American Health Care Act on Wednesday night with a vote expected less than 24 hours later, steers an additional $8 billion to reduce insurance costs for people with pre-existing medical conditions. Experts say the funding is still short of what is actually necessary to keep many of those patients from experiencing insurance...

(CNN)Republicans are two votes away from another failure on their efforts to repeal and replace Obamacare. House leaders need 216 Republican "yes" votes to get the legislation through the House, since no Democrats are expected to support the bill. According to CNN's whip count, 21 House Republicans have said they will vote against the new version of the bill. Republicans can lose up to 22 votes and still pass their legislation. If 23 Republicans vote against it, then it would likely not be able to pass. Another 18 Republicans have told CNN they are undecided. That's at least 39 lawmakers...

Editor’s note: Republicans’ failure to repeal Obamacare after assuming control of the White House as well as Congress registered strongly with our audience in recent days. The day after President Trump’s 100th day in office, today’s mailbag leads off with two related letters, one signed by 17 GOP and grassroots activists in Pennsylvania.—Ken McIntyre Dear Daily Signal: Since it was enacted into law in 2010, most Americans have opposed the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare. In elections since then, Republicans have campaigned on the promise of total repeal of Obamacare. We, political constituents and grassroots supporters, responded by giving Republicans...

The fate of Obamacare repeal/replace Part II isn't quite sealed yet but the latest nose count among Republicans in Congress holds out very little hope that this current iteration of Obamacare reform will meet the same end as the first one. The Hill is reporting that at least 21 Republicans have indicated they are a "no vote" for the current legislation. Since 23 negative votes would scuttle the bill - unless some Democrats could be convinced to vote for it - it doesn't appear that Speaker Ryan is any more inclined to bring this version of Obamacare repeal to the...

We’ve already seen that repealing Obamacare is politically perilous. Now there’s a new complication: It may also violate international law. The United Nations has contacted the Trump administration as part of an investigation into whether repealing the Affordable Care Act without an adequate substitute for the millions who would lose health coverage would be a violation of several international conventions that bind the United States. It turns out that the notion that “health care is a right” is more than just a Democratic talking point. A confidential, five-page “urgent appeal” from the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner on Human...

House Freedom Caucus Chairman Mark Meadows (R-NC) told Breitbart News in an exclusive interview that he expects an Obamacare repeal bill to pass by the end of May. Rumors started spreading last week that House Republicans were close to a deal on repealing Obamacare, and now Congressman Mark Meadows says a repeal bill will pass by the end of May. The agreement, brokered by the House Freedom Caucus chairman and Tuesday Group co-chairman Tom MacArthur (R-NJ), would allow states to eliminate Obamacare’s community rating system — a rule that prohibits health insurers from pricing health care plans based on age,...

Rep. Dave Brat said Friday the GOP can get the new health care bill done in a week. “It’s not really a new bill,” Mr. Brat, Virginia Republican and a member of the House Freedom Caucus, said on CNN’s “New Day.” “We’re still waiting on the official text.” Mr. Brat said that after the Republicans’ failed attempt at putting together a replacement plan for Obamacare last month, Vice President Mike Pence came together with House Republicans to work out the issues from the last bill. “Vice President Pence came over and met with all of us. He had a great...

".@RepDaveBrat: New health care plan in GOP pipeline "the same fundamental bill" as one that faltered last month https://t.co/kK1lWALm5T" — New Day (@NewDay) April 21, 2017 A revised GOP healthcare bill is the 'same fundamental bill' as the first one, but it contains some significant amendments and lawmakers will likely approve it, Rep. Dave Brat said Friday. "[Republicans] like to rely on free markets as much as we can," the Virginia Republican told CNN's "New Day" anchor Chris Cuomo. "This is still a federal government structure. I'm not totally happy with that outcome." The plan "at least cracks the door...

Repeal Obamacare now. Here's why it would work. House Republicans are reportedly ready to return any day now to health-insurance reform after the spectacular failure in late March of the American Health Care Act, the resoundingly unpopular bill to “replace” the long-unpopular and misnamed Affordable Care Act. This time, they need to deliver: After seven years of promises to repeal Obamacare root and branch, the party can’t go back to the voters with nothing more than a participation trophy. It won’t be easy, and it may be agonizingly slow, but the Democrats didn’t get Obamacare passed overnight: They spent 40...

The GOP’s first shot at fixing Obamacare was an absolute dumpster fire. Paul Ryan never bothered to get conservatives involved and it cost him big time. He couldn’t even get his Obamacare lite bill to the floor for a vote. Now, it looks like Mike Pence got involved in the negotiations and an agreement was made. "#BREAKING Sources tell me @mike_pence, @SpeakerRyan, @RepMarkMeadows and @RepTomMacArthur negotiated a possible amendment to the #AHCA." — Brian Schwartz (@schwartzbFBN) April 20, 2017 "#BREAKING The possible amendment is titled the "MacArthur Amendment" and sources tell me it could bring up to 15-20 new @freedomcaucus...

I don’t make it a practice to comment on potential legislation before reading it. Speculation takes too much bias and rumors into account which tends to sway the reader (and author) in directions before the truth is even known. I’m making this exception because if reports that Vice President Mike Pence has negotiated a deal with the Freedom Caucus turn out to be true, it could be the best move made by the administration on health care since taking office. Then again, it might be a big nothingburger. The good news: limited waivers for the states. This means states have...

Allows states to roll back Obamacare rules if they choose! An emerging House GOP compromise on health care would allow states to waive certain Obamacare protections with an eye toward driving down premiums for healthier customers and subsidizing sick people who would end up paying more through separate funding pools. House Speaker Paul D. Ryan recently said negotiators were putting the “finishing touches” on an effort to bridge the gap between archconservatives who want to tear down the Affordable Care Act’s rules on insurers and centrists who’ve pledged to defend popular protections in the program. The GOP tug-of-war tanked Republicans’...

President Trump predicted Thursday that Congress will avert a government shutdown next week and that the House will also pass a revised bill to repeal and replace Obamacare. “I want to get both,” Mr. Trump said at a White House press conference. “I think we’ll get both.” Of the new health care bill being negotiated by House Republican leaders, the president said, “This is a great bill. This is a great plan. It’s evolving. We have a good chance of getting it soon — whether it’s next week or shortly thereafter.” {..snip..}

Biiiiig caveat: Under the deal, states would still have to make sure that people with preexisting conditions are eligible for some sort of coverage. Insurers wouldn’t be allowed to drop them entirely. To obtain a federal waiver from the relevant ObamaCare regs, a state would either have to join a federal high-risk pool for those consumers or set up one of their own. In that sense, the GOP compromise (between the conservative Freedom Caucus and the moderate Tuesday Group) is a mirror image of O-Care itself. That law gave states the power to set up their own insurance exchanges,...

Two republican lawmakers are about to present a bill calling for the unpopular FATCA tax reporting law’s repeal. USA lawmakers have scheduled a first hearing on April 26 for a bill requesting the repeal of the controversial and much-disliked FATCA legislation. Republican anti-FATCA campaigners Senator Rand Paul and Representative Mark Meadows are determined to end the chaos caused to USA expats and overseas financial institutions since the unpopular legislation was introduced. Should the house vote for repeal, the FATCA legislation underpinning the Internal Revenue Service’s links with foreign governments will be a thing of the past. In a letter to...

This is a ONE-TIME opportunity to save healthcare and rejuvenate our still moribund economy Mr. Paul and members of the Freedom Caucus, the American people are counting on you and supporting you to ensure that Obamacare is fully repealed. If you are to repeal Obamacare, it must be FULLY REPEALED on the first attempt, or it will NEVER be repealed. If it is not repealed on the first attempt, you cannot trust that any promised future attempt will occur. Even if a subsequent attempt occurs, Las Vegas would probably place the odds high that it will be even more contentious...

The White House is expected to release the text of a new deal on Tuesday that would give states the power to opt out of certain Obamacare insurance mandates, in a major attempt to revive Obamacare repeal as early as this week. Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., chairman of the Freedom Caucus, told reporters after meeting with Vice President Mike Pence and White House officials that he expects the text of the new compromise on Tuesday. The compromise would allow states to opt out of forcing insurers to cover 10 essential health benefits in plans, including maternity care and hospitalization. The...