House Republicans pass healthcare bill in first step toward replacing Obamacare

He described Obamacare as a catastrophe and essentially dead, adding: If we dont pay lots of ransom money over to insurance companies, it would die immediately.

Despite reservations expressed by senators, the president predicted the new bill would live the upper enclosure. Were gonna get this passed through the Senate, he told, adding, I actually think it will get even better. And stimulate no mistake, this is a repeal and a replace of Obamacare. Make no mistake about it.

He added: As much as weve come up with a really incredible healthcare programme, this has brought the Republican party together. Next, he promised, “wouldve been” the most difficult taxation cut in US history.

House speaker Paul Ryan was smiling as he faced the media. It genuinely was a collaborative, consensus-driven attempt, he said.

Member after member took care to lavish kudo on Trump. Majority leader Kevin McCarthy told the gathering: Ive merely “ve been through” a few chairpeople but Ive never seen someone so hands on. I walk into my agency yesterday morning and they say the presidents calling again … The president gives me a listing of who he guesses I would be best to talk to on the listing. And he was right.

It was a very different spectacle from the first attempt to pass the healthcare bill in March, which ended with a crestfallen Ryan admitting to reporters on Capitol Hill that moving from opposition to governing comes with growing pains.

But faced with mounting pressure from Trump and a White House eagerly searching for a victory of its own, Republicans managed to coalesce around a flagging programme that simply six weeks ago was considered all but dead.

As the president approached his 100 th period in agency without a single legislative victory to his epithet, the White House intensified its push on Republicans to revive the effort to repeal Obamacare, a significant campaign promise. Behind the scenes, New Jersey congressman Tom MacArthur, a moderate, teamed up with North Carolina congressman Mark Meadows, chairman of the arch-conservative Freedom Caucus, to hammer out a compromise.

Its real easy to be unified when your election doesnt affair and youre in the minority, Meadows said before the voting on Thursday. Its much more difficult to be unified when youre in the majority, and thats what were seeing.

Ahead of the vote, members took turns delivering impassioned speeches from the appeals chamber floor, outlining rare applause and cheers.

A lot of us have been waiting seven years to cast this election, told Ryan, imploring his party to make good on their promise to repeal the ACA.

As Ryan finished, Republicans rose to their feet, chanting Vote! Vote! Vote! Democrats countered: Wheres the score? a including references to Ryans decision to vote on the bill before the independent Congressional Budget Office( CBO) could furnish an analysis on how it would impact voters.

Most Americans dont know who their member of Congress is, Democratic House minority leader Nancy Pelosi told. But they will now when they was discovered that you voted to take away their healthcare.

You, Pelosi added, singling out moderate Republicans, have every provision of this bill tattooed on your forehead. You will glow in the dark on this one.

The rewrote healthcare bill was instantly mired in dispute, as Democrats vowed to wage the upcoming 2018 midterms over the legacy of Obamacare and its expansion of coverage to millions of Americans.

The Republican plan has described particular scrutiny for gutting coverage for people with preexisting medical conditions. Prior to the passageway of Obamas healthcare law, insurers were able to deny coverage to people who were already sick and whose care was more expensive.

The Republican bill would allow states to opt out of coverage for preexisting conditions, a move conservatives argue would lower overall premiums by removing sick people from world markets. An estimated 27% of Americans under 65 have preexisting conditions, include cancer, heart disease and diabetes, that were not covered prior to the opening of the ACA.

To attract assistance from moderate Republicans who balked at the programme, an additional$ 8bn was included over five years to fund so-called high-risk pools that would help subsidize people with preexisting conditions..

Health policy experts have argued the fix is insufficient. At least one analysis, from the left-leaning Center for American Progress, detected the Republican programme would fall woefully short in providing coverage to men with preexisting conditions.

The Republican healthcare plan also includes an attempt to defund womens health organisation Schemed Parenthood, as well as drastic cuts to Medicaid, totaling $370 bn over a decade. A broader portrait of the bills potential consequences was unclear, because Republicans rushed a election before the CBO could furnish an analysis. The agency had projected that as many as 24 million Americans would lose their health insurance under the original version of the Republican plan.

While Republican lawmakers accepted they would prefer to first find a CBO score, most resigned themselves to instead favor the passageway of a bill they could tout as progress toward repealing and supplanting the ACA.

It was an nearly stunning about-face for “states parties ” that for years railed against Democrats for what they said was a rushed, backroom process to pass the ACA in 2010.( The debate over the legislation was actually far more protracted than characterized .) The latest version of the Republican bill, the process of drafting which was still evolving overnight, was not posted until late Wednesday night less than 24 hours before the vote.

Meadows, who long explosion the Democrats as rushing Obamacare through, pushed back on accusations that Republicans were being hypocritical.

I have read the bill no less than six times, he told. If they havent read the bill its because they havent the spent the time to do that.

In the Senates hands

Whether Republicans seven-year mission to dismantle the ACA comes to fruition now lands squarely in the hands of the Senate.

Faced with a far more narrow majority in the upper enclosure, Republicans plan to use a process known as budget reconciliation that would allow them to avoid a Democratic-led filibuster and pass a bill with a simple 51 -majority vote. But the rules of that process pose their own hurdles, as they limit the scope of what can be passed through reconciliation to spending, taxes or fiscal deficits. The House-passed bill would thus need to undergo substantial changes.

Republicans in the Senate signaled they were in no hurry to improvement a healthcare bill.

My guess is were going to spend at the least a month looking at the issue, Republican senator Bob Corker of Tennessee told MSNBC.

House Republicans said they expected the Senate to make changes to the legislation, with the goals and targets of ultimately improving it. But that would tee up another vote in the House on its final passageway and potentially reopen the gap between the GOPs moderates and its right flank.

Democratic Joe Manchin, a senator from West Virginia facing a tough re-election battle next year, become clear Republicans were on their own as they eyed next steps.

I cant tell[ the Republican bill] is dead on advent, he told Politico in an interview.

But they dont have 60 referendums, so its dead on arrival.