Trump seeks health bill triumph
GOP leaders boost pressure as crunch time nears
WASHINGTON, March 22, (AP): President Donald Trump’s pitch on a polarizing Republican health care bill in the House amounts to a means to an end: a way to move on to what he calls “the biggest tax cut since Ronald Reagan.”
Backed by pro-business elements of his party, Trump has increasingly argued that the repeal and replacement of former President Barack Obama’s health care law is a necessary step along the road to other parts of his first-year agenda. In both his public pitches and private meetings with House Republicans to secure passage, Trump appears ready to move on.
“After we repeal and replace Obamacare, our Republican majority will pass massive, historic tax reform, the biggest tax cut since Ronald Reagan — and potentially even bigger,” Trump said Tuesday night at a fundraiser for the National Republican Congressional Committee. Trump said they had to start with health care but spoke of a tax overhaul in almost giddy terms: “That one’s going to be fun. That’s called the wheelhouse.”
Trump’s eager anticipation of the next item on his agenda is a response to how difficult this one has been. The health care debate has been more contentious, divisive and less politically popular than many Republicans anticipated. Although the party has been long unified in pushing for repeal of Obamacare, it was not united behind an alternative. The process has exposed persistent divisions between conservatives and moderate Republicans, and highlighted the political perils in scaling back government’s role in providing health care.
By comparison, even tax reform — a complex and politically tricky exercise — can start to look easy.
Trump’s first major hurdle on health care comes in a Thursday House vote. Failure to pass the bill, which was largely drafted by House Speaker Paul Ryan, could spell doom for Trump’s central campaign promise to rip apart former President Barack Obama’s health law. Rebellion among House Republicans also would undercut Trump’s image as a dealmaker, jeopardizing his ability to muscle through tax reform, infrastructure projects, immigration and other issues.
A senior administration official said the White House remained cautiously optimistic that the bill will clear the House on Thursday. Trump’s advisers are trying to persuade about 20 to 25 House Republicans who are either opposed to the plan or remain undecided, the official said.
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations, said the administration is aiming for House passage Thursday to ensure the bill will be considered by the Senate prior to the Easter recess in Congress that begins April 10.
The Republican bill has generated plenty of opposition. Members of the hard-line House Freedom Caucus oppose it because they say it doesn’t go far enough to undo Obamacare. Some moderate GOP members, meanwhile, are wary of a recent Congressional Budget Office analysis predicting 24 million people would lose coverage in a decade.
Meanwhile, Trump and House leaders are revving up pressure on balky conservatives and other Republican lawmakers as crunch time approaches on the party’s health care overhaul bill, a drive GOP leaders concede they can’t afford to lose.
“If we keep our promise, people will reward us,” House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., told reporters Tuesday of GOP vows to demolish former President Barack Obama’s health care law that the GOP has assailed since its enactment in 2010. “If we don’t keep our promise, it will be very hard to manage this,” the speaker said.
“Honestly, a loss is not acceptable, folks,” Trump told lawmakers at a closed-door Capitol meeting with House Republicans. He warned they’d face widespread defeats in next year’s elections and possible loss of control of the chamber if the measure failed.