LF: Healthcare bill vote delayed by House GOP leaders (no vote today

Title: Healthcare bill vote delayed by House GOP leaders (no vote today - Obamacare Lite defeated)
Source: CBS News
URL Source: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/health- ... bill-vote-latest-developments/
Published: Mar 23, 2017
Author: CBS News
Post Date: 2017-03-23 16:04:06 by Hondo68
Keywords: None
Views: 383
Comments: 5

Update, 3:36 p.m.: House GOP leadership has just announced that there will not be a vote on the healthcare bill today. The entire House GOP conference will meet tonight at 7 p.m. to discuss next steps. See below for more.

House Republican leaders were supposed to hold a vote on the health care bill tonight, but this morning, they weren’t ready yet.

Why many are taking a wait-and-see view of GOP health care bill

The Rules Committee, which determines how the measure will be debated and voted on in the House, met for 12 hours yesterday, and adjourned after midnight without agreeing on a path forward.

The chairman of the House Freedom Caucus, Rep. Mark Meadows, had his own late night meeting -- with President Trump over the bill. Many of the “no” votes that threaten to scuttle the bill come from members of the Freedom Caucus, which is made up of the most conservative members in the House. Meadows said he was “encouraged” by his meeting with the White House -- their negotiations continued today.

The Freedom Caucus wants to lower premiums by rolling back what are known as the Obamacare “essential benefits” -- like maternity care, emergency room visits, prescription drugs. But several moderates will likely reject this approach.

Republicans can lose up to 22 members, assuming that no Democrats will support the bill. Here’s the most current count of the “no” votes, according to CBS News.

And here’s the latest:

3:36 p.m. House GOP leadership has just announced that there will not be a vote on the healthcare bill today. The entire House GOP conference will meet tonight at 7 p.m. to discuss next steps.

3:12 p.m. Ryan’s press conference has been postponed for a second time, CBS News’ Catherine Reynolds reports.

1:47 p.m. The Freedom Caucus is currently meeting behind closed doors on Capitol Hill. Amash said that eliminating essential health benefits isn’t enough and that adding it alone would make the measure worse, CBS News’ Catherine Reynolds reports.

Meadows said he wants the key provisions in the second phase of the repeal and replace strategy moved into this bill. He said that GOP leaders don’t have the votes to pass the current version.

1:44 p.m. House Freedom Caucus Chairman Mark Meadows, R-North Carolina, and Rep. Justin Amash, R-Michigan, just said that there is no deal between the White House and their conservative bloc of lawmakers, CBS News’ Walt Cronkite reports. With no deal, it’s unclear how Republicans will move forward and whether the vote will still occur Thursday night.

12:45 p.m. President Obama issued a statement earlier in the day marking the 7th anniversary of Obamacare.

“Thanks to this law, more than twenty million Americans have gained the security and peace of mind of health insurance,” he said. “Thanks to this law, more than ninety percent of Americans are insured – the highest rate in our history. Thanks to this law, the days when women could be charged more than men and Americans with pre-existing conditions could be denied coverage altogether are relics of the past.”

Obama said that seniors have bigger discounts on prescription drugs and young people can stay on their parents’ insurance plans until the age of 26.

“And Americans who already had insurance received an upgrade as well – from free preventive care, like mammograms and vaccines, to improvements in the quality of care in hospitals that has averted nearly 100,000 deaths so far,” he said.

12:43 p.m. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-California, held her weekly press conference and mocked the president for having the healthcare vote scheduled on the anniversary of Obamacare being signed into law.

“Rookie’s error, Donald Trump,” she said.

The House Republican conference was supposed to meet this morning at 9 a.m., but that meeting was postponed, CBS News’ Catherine Reynolds reported. House Speaker Paul Ryan was supposed to hold his weekly news conference at 11:30 a.m., but that’s now been pushed to 3:30 p.m.

The president is meeting with the House Freedom Caucus this morning, also at 11:30 a.m., on changes to the health care bill.

We gave the Republicans everything they wanted and they can't come up with a paltry 51%?

God bless the Freedom Caucus. They've defeated the socialist Trump/Ryan ObamaCare-Lite. Now onward to the REAL repeal of Obamacare!

Fine. Roll back those "essential benefits". Does that mean a hospital/doctor can turn away a patient who isn't covered for those benefits by their policy if the the the individual can't pay?

If not, then we're right back where we atarted -- the hospital/doctor absorb the costs and pass on the costs to others.

The Obamacare loving GOP Communist Canaries may try for a vote tomorrow, Friday.

Health Care Vote Canceled After GOP Leaders Fail to Win Support

House Republican leaders abruptly postponed a planned vote on the GOP health care bill Thursday as they struggled to find sufficient support to pass it. GOP lawmakers have been told procedural votes on the bill will still be held tonight and that a full vote on the measure could take place Friday.

The move to delay the vote came after House conservatives said there was no deal struck on the bill following a meeting with President Donald Trump at the White House Thursday. According to the NBC News vote count, GOP leaders were still at least eight votes short of winning enough backing for passage.

Rep. Mark Meadows R-North Carolina, chairman of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, told reporters that there was no deal after the meeting, but added he was still hopeful one can be struck.

Rep. Tom Cole R-Oklahoma, a supporter of the health care bill, said the move away from a Thursday night vote "certainly makes a lot of sense."

"You reach a certain point in the day, and even if there were an agreement, you'd have to call the conference together, explain the deal, between the deal there might be a discussion, there might be last-minute changes or tweaks, I don't think you want to do this late at night," Cole said.

White House press secretary Sean Spicer said Thursday afternoon that the administration does not feel it needs a "plan B".

The moderate members, known as the "Tuesday Group", are meeting with President Donald Trump at the White House Thursday evening. Meanwhile, on Capitol Hill, House Speaker Paul Ryan is meeting with the conservative members in an effort to get consensus.

The conservative members' demands include the repeal of allowing kids to stay on their parents insurance until 26 and a ban on pre-existing conditions in addition to a repeal of the Essential Benefits Package, or ESP, which includes insurance coverage requirements such as maternity care, hospital care, mental health services and emergency care. The White House wouldn't budge on the pre-existing conditions and insurance until 26, but offered allowing the states the option to remove the ESPs.

House leaders and various Republican factions have worked in recent days to find a deal on the American Health Care Act, supported by House Speaker Paul Ryan, that would appease enough moderates and conservatives to win enough backing to get the legislation passed.

There are currently 30 Republicans who say they will not vote for the Trump-backed legislation. Among the latest is Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler, R-Washington.

"While I appreciate this week's effort by Speaker Ryan and his leadership team to better protect older Americans from health-care cost increases, the difficulties this bill would create for millions of children were left unaddressed," Herrera Beutler said in a statement Thursday.

Ryan huddled with moderate Republicans Wednesday night for two-and-a-half hours over pizza and snacks to hash out a way to move forward. But as rank-and-file members filed out, many taking a back way to avoid the press, they revealed little amid indications the negotiations had not gone well.

Rep. Charlie Dent, R-Pennsylvania., released a statement after the meeting announcing that he'd vote "no."

"I believe this bill, in its current form, will lead to the loss of coverage and make insurance unaffordable for too many Americans, particularly for low-to-moderate income and older individuals," Dent said.

The opposition from Herrera and Dent helped push NBC News' tally of Republicans against or leaning against the bill to 30 — higher than it was two days ago.

The tenor of the negotiations changed Wednesday evening after the White House, responsible for negotiating with the conservatives while Ryan was tasked with the moderates, told critical members that they'd consider their demands. Those demands include removing the Essential Health Benefits, an Obamacare provision that requires insurance plans cover a minimum number of services, including maternity care, emergency room care, hospitalization, mental health care and more.

"It is our leadership team that has set an arbitrary deadline — we are happy to keep working with the White House and the leadership team but we don't think the arbitrary deadline of (Thursday) really means anything," said Rep. Justin Amash, R-Michigan., who is voting against the bill unless desired changes are made.

The intense negotiations come as outside groups are putting more pressure on lawmakers.

The Charles and David Koch-backed Americans for Prosperity and Freedom Partners have reserved "seven figures" to reward members who oppose the bill. The development came as Trump told Republicans a day earlier that they'd be lose their seats if they voted against the Republican plan. And another conservative group, Club for Growth, is running television ads in some Republican districts to push members to vote against it.

First of all, a 26-year-old is not a "kid". Second, parents pay a higher premium to cover them. Third, it's optional. Fourth, given the high deductibles and the likelihood that they would ever use the insurance, it's really a moot point in the grand scheme of things.

Pre-existing conditions is another matter. There is no such thing as "insurance" for someone already sick. This group has to be handled differently. How do these conservative members plan to handle them?

The D&R terrorists hate us because we're free, to vote second party

Health Care Vote Canceled After GOP Leaders Fail to Win Support

The D&R terrorists hate us because we're free, to vote second party