GOP Scramble: Ryan Delays Vote on Health Care Bill

Apparently short of a majority to pass their health care bill, House Republican leaders on Thursday pushed back a vote on the American Health Care Act until Friday at the earliest.

House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) had planned to vote Thursday, but members of the conservative House Freedom Caucus held firm in their opposition. That left House leaders saying they would delay the vote because they don’t want to hold it in the middle of the night.

“They held together based on principle, because they want what’s best for the country. The bill that we have before us is not good enough yet.”

“We’ve made progress today,” House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) told CNN. “We hope to be able to vote tomorrow.”

McCarthy said the entire Republican caucus would meet at 7 p.m. Thursday. He added, “We’ll have the votes.”

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) praised the Freedom Caucus for refusing to bend in its drive for substantive changes to an approach that critics have dubbed “Obamacare Lite,” among other pejoratives.

“They held together based on principle, because they want what’s best for the country,” he told reporters on a conference call. “The bill that we have before us is not good enough yet.”

Some conservatives have criticized the decision to strip out provisions that would repeal costly regulations on insurance companies that critics contend drive up the cost of health care. House leaders plan a second vote later on those items but have said the current bill cannot include them and still avoid a requirement that the bill receive 60 votes in the Senate to break a filibuster.

Paul argued that the bill could be more comprehensive and still be ruled as sufficiently tied to the budget in order to thread that parliamentary needle. He called on President Donald Trump to declare publicly that Vice President Mike Pence — as the Senate’s chief presiding officer — will take control during the Senate debate and rule on challenges from the floor.

“That alone, I think, would break the logjam,” he said.

Freedom Caucus Chairman Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) told reporters in the Capitol that progress had been made in negotiations but that a deal had not yet been reached.

“I’m still a no,” he said. “I’m desperately trying to be a yes. I think the president knows that.”

Meadows praised Trump’s efforts.

“The president’s engagement is unparalleled,” he said. “I believe it’s the highest in our country’s history.”

As for the president, he spent Thursday talking both to Freedom Caucus members and members of the moderate Republican Tuesday Group.

While meeting with representatives of the trucking industry, the president said the bill should pass overwhelmingly, based on the merits.

“We’ll see what happens. It’s going to be a very close vote,” he said. “And by the way, it’s close not because Obamacare’s good. It’s close for politics. They know it’s no good. Everybody knows it’s no good. It’s only politics.”

Adam Brandon, president of FreedomWorks, urged Republicans to put up a clean bill to repeal the Affordable Care Act.

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“We had hoped that there would be a deal today that would address House conservatives’ concerns with the American Health Care Act,” he said in a prepared statement. “Unfortunately, no agreement was reached. The last few weeks of drama could have been avoided if Speaker Paul Ryan and House leadership had provided a more open process and sought feedback early on from House conservatives, including the members of the Freedom Caucus.”

Paul told reporters that it was a “tactical error” for House leaders not to give conservatives a seat at the table earlier. Asked by LifeZette if House leaders could address the concerns of conservatives without driving away moderates, the senator said both wings of the party actually share common ground.

“All of us are scared that the bill will not lower insurance prices,” he said. “I don’t think we want to own a problem we won’t fix.”