Trump to GOP: Pass health care bill or seal your fate
WASHINGTON (AP) — Time for talk running out, President Donald Trump on Tuesday warned wavering House Republicans that their jobs were on the line in next year's elections if they failed to back a GOP bill that would overhaul Barack Obama's Affordable Care Act.
Trump huddled behind closed doors with rank-and-file Republicans just hours after GOP leaders unveiled changes intended to pick up votes by doling out concessions to centrists and hardliners alike.
The GOP bill would scale back the role of government in the private health insurance market, and limit future federal financing for Medicaid.
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates that 24 million fewer people will have health insurance in 2026 under the GOP bill.
"The president wouldn't have been here this morning if they have the votes," said Rep. Rod Blum, R-Iowa, a member of the Freedom Caucus who complained that the GOP bill leaves too much government regulation in place.
In an Associated Press interview, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., signaled he'd use Trump's clout to pressure unhappy Republicans in his chamber.
Federal subsidies based on peoples' incomes and the cost of insurance would end, and a Medicaid expansion to 11 million more low-income people would disappear.
In a bid to cement support from upstate New Yorkers, the revisions would also stop that state from passing on over $2 billion a year in Medicaid costs to upstate counties, though it exempts Democratic-run New York City from that protection.