Fractured House GOP Can’t Agree On ACA Replacement

WASHINGTON — Negotiations to revive the failed GOP health care legislation have hit a major, probably lethal, snag.

Embarrassed and frustrated by last month’s collapse of their effort to repeal and replace Obamacare, conservatives this week launched a last-ditch effort to revive the legislation.

Despite late-night meetings Monday and Tuesday with fellow Republicans, including GOP leaders in the House of Representatives and Vice President Mike Pence, they’re up against familiar obstacles that could doom the effort for the year.

Conservative interest groups are on the warpath, charging the new ideas don’t go far enough to destroy the 7-year-old Affordable Care Act.

On the other end of the GOP political divide, moderate House Republicans are withholding support for the new White House-backed changes. They fear the revisions would jeopardize the health law’s requirement that individual insurers cover people with pre-existing medical conditions.

An estimated 133 million Americans under age 65 have pre-existing conditions that would have kept them from getting individual insurance or required them to pay much higher rates prior to 2014, when the ACA’s new coverage protections were implemented, according to federal estimates.

Conservative activists Wednesday blamed at least five members of the centrist House Tuesday Group for the impasse. Conservatives complained the moderates were not eager to allow states to opt out of two popular ACA provisions: One would require all plans to cover 10 “essential health benefits” and another would bar insurers from charging sick people more for coverage than healthy people.

Although both rules increase the cost of individual insurance, patient advocates say they ensure that coverage is standardized, thorough and accessible to those who need it.

Michael Needham, chief executive officer of Heritage Action, a leading conservative group, was sharply critical Wednesday of GOP centrists Reps. David Joyce of Ohio, Leonard Lance of New Jersey and Patrick Meehan of Pennsylvania. They “were standing in the way of legislative compromise that is being pushed by the White House and which would get overwhelming support in the Republican conference.”

“They’re opposed because they don’t want to repeal Obamacare,” Needham told reporters on a conference call.

He said lawmakers should begin their congressional recess, scheduled to start Thursday afternoon, and vote on the legislation when they return.

The conservative Club for Growth piled on, accusing Republican moderates of torpedoing a potential deal.

“The left wing among House Republicans doesn’t want to compromise or keep their pledge to voters to repeal Obamacare,” said Club for Growth President David McIntosh.

Moderates, in turn, blamed conservatives for constantly altering their demands.

“Repeal and replace,” said Lance. “I have never campaigned on a mere repeal, ever.”

Rep. Chris Collins, R-N.Y., one of President Donald Trump’s closest House allies, said Heritage “is about one thing: raising money. They raise money on controversy. The more controversy, they blast out an email, they gin up their supporters. They cash the checks and they move on.”