White House tries to salvage GOP health care proposal as criticism mounts

WASHINGTON – The White House launched an intensive effort Tuesday to salvage support for the Republican plan to revise the Affordable Care Act, even as a growing number of lawmakers weighed in against the proposal.

One day after the Congressional Budget Office released its analysis showing that 14 million fewer Americans would be insured next year under the GOP plan, Vice President Mike Pence and Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price went to Capitol Hill to rally backing for the proposal.

But widespread dissatisfaction among House and Senate lawmakers – conservatives and moderates alike – showed no signs of dissipating, increasing the chances that House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., will have difficulty passing the bill if it goes to the House floor in the next two weeks, not to mention whether it can collect a majority in the Senate.

“I have serious concerns about the current draft of the House bill,” Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, said in an interview Tuesday. “As written, I do not believe the House bill would pass the Senate.”

The White House is putting its political capital behind the Ryan proposal, however, sending emissaries to the Hill and meeting with skeptical lawmakers – including Cruz, who went to the White House on Tuesday along with a small group of fellow conservatives.

Trump has enthusiastically backed the GOP plan in various statements and tweets, and its failure – or the failure of a similar measure – would probably tarnish his promise to replace Obamacare with a better system.

The president also planned to speak about health care with Ryan and House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., by phone Tuesday afternoon.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., attempted to play down the severity of the GOP split after a closed-door party lunch attended by Pence, Price and some of the architects of the House bill, including Ways and Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady, R-Texas.

Following the lunch, McConnell tried to shift the focus from the coverage numbers to more favorable terrain for Republicans: the CBO’s projection that Ryan’s plan would reduce the federal budget deficit over the next decade and produce a 10 percent average decrease in premiums after that.

“Regarding the projection of fewer people purchasing, I think that’s the inevitable result of the government not making you purchase something you may not want,” McConnell told reporters. “And so we are hoping to have a more vibrant market that will attract a greater number of people to actually be able to buy, at an affordable cost, insurance that actually makes sense for them rather than one prescribed by the government.”

Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., who is normally chatty with reporters, was more guarded than usual coming out of the meeting. He declined to discuss specifics but said House leaders and the White House were making a good-faith effort to hear the concerns of Republican senators.

“They really are taking input. So I don’t think they would be over here unless they really do want to take input from folks,” Corker said.

The GOP legislation faces an important test Thursday, when the House Budget Committee will meet to combine pieces passed by separate committees into a single bill and advance it to the House floor. The budget panel cannot make substantive changes to the bill, but it can make nonbinding recommendations before it goes to the floor for a final vote.

Several members of the hard-line conservative House Freedom Caucus, which has expressed serious concerns that the measure does not go far enough in repealing Obamacare, are on the Budget Committee and could decline to support the bill there.

Republicans hold an eight-vote advantage over Democrats on the Budget Committee, and if four GOP members oppose it, the bill could stall. Three of the 22 Republicans on the panel are members of the House Freedom Caucus.

Near the close of the Tuesday Senate lunches, Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., the head of the Freedom Caucus, was seen walking down a hallway near the room where the lunch was held.

“We’ve got some work to do, still,” said Meadows, adding that he had received “no assurances” from the White House or anyone else about changes to the bill that would attract his support.