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A4 U.S. NEWS
Wednesday 15 March 2017

Defiant conservatives still fighting Trump’s health bill

ALAN FRAM wrangler, discussed the — and attach a big num-
Associated PressWASH- legislation by phone with ber to a problem haunting
INGTON (AP) — Undaunted the House’s two top Re- GOP governors and mem-
by fellow Republicans’ de- publicans. bers of Congress whose
fiance, GOP leaders and He also dispatched Vice states have benefited from
the White House redou- President Mike Pence and “Obamacare.”
bled their efforts Tuesday health secretary Tom Price “I plan to vote NO” on the
to muscle legislation over- to hear GOP senators’ con- GOP bill, Rep. Ileana Ros-
hauling America’s health cerns. Lehtinen, R-Fla., tweeted
care system through Con- With leaders hoping to Tuesday. “As written the
gress following a sobering move the measure through plan leaves too many from
report about millions being the House next week so my #SoFla district unin-
shoved off insurance cov- the Senate can debate sured.”
erage. it, changes in the mea- The budget office report
President Donald Trump, sure seemed all but cer- also said the measure
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., joined by Sen. whose strong Election Day tain. Trump’s spokesman would reduce federal defi-
John Barrasso, R-Wyo., left, speaks with reporters at the Capitol showing in GOP regions acknowledged they were cits by $337 billion over
in Washington, Tuesday, March, 14, 2017. makes him the party’s ul- open to revisions to win the next decade, largely
(AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite) timate Capitol Hill vote support. by cutting Medicaid, the
“This has never been a take health insurance program
it or leave it,” said Press for the poor, and eliminat-
Secretary Sean Spicer. ing Obama’s subsidies for
The GOP bill is the party’s low- and middle-income
response to seven years people.
of promising to repeal The report said that the
President Barack Obama’s bill’s changes would result
2010 health care overhaul. in federal subsidies that
It would undo that law’s in- would fall to half their cur-
dividual mandate, which rent size in a decade and
requires most people to that older, lower-earning
have coverage, by ending people would be hit espe-
the tax penalty on those cially hard.
who don’t. Those findings further en-
It would also provide age- ergized Democrats, who
based tax credits instead already were unanimously
of the subsidies geared to opposing the GOP repeal
income in Obama’s stat- effort and showing no sign
ute, end that law’s expan- of relenting.
sion of Medicaid and curb “Of course you can have
its future spending, and let savings if you cut off mil-
insurers boost rates for se- lions of people from access
niors. to health care,” said House
On Monday, the Congres- Minority Leader Nancy Pe-
sional Budget Office said losi of California.
the Republican legislation She said the measure’s shift
would reduce the ranks of of billions of dollars from
the insured by 24 million in lower- to higher-earning
a decade, largely by cut- families actually would ef-
ting Medicaid recipients fectively transfer money
and people buying indi- from GOP to Democratic
vidual policies. That would regions, and, seemingly
be more than the 20 million taunting Republicans, she
who’ve gained coverage added, “Explain that to
under Obama’s overhaul your constituents.”q