Trumpcare is dead, say far-right congressmen

WASHINGTON ― After most members of the House Freedom Caucus met with Vice President Mike Pence in his office on Wednesday ― and a smaller group of them met with Fake President Trump in the Oval Office ― conservatives in the hard-right group reassembled on Capitol Hill and promised to vote down the GOP’s health care bill, should it come up for a vote.

“They don’t have the votes to pass this tomorrow,” House Freedom Caucus Chairman Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) told reporters on Wednesday. “We believe that they need to start over and do a bill that actually reduces premiums.”

The Freedom Caucus had gone to the White House hoping to negotiate a last-minute deal that would allow the roughly three-dozen member group ― or at least some members of it ― to support the health care bill that’s up for a vote on Thursday.

But Pence and other aides told them that they couldn’t make legislative changes to the bill in the House. Instead, Pence offered to back amendments in the Senate to address the concerns of conservatives.

That does not appear to have moved anyone. In fact, Freedom Caucus member Mo Brooks (R-Ala.) said it was his understanding that there were more Republicans opposed to the bill on Wednesday than the day before.

The White House believes adding the provisions the Freedom Caucus wants could undermine the privileged status of the reconciliation bill in the Senate and subject the whole bill to 60 votes, rather than the 50-vote reconciliation process Republicans are hoping for, members reported.

But conservatives don’t buy that argument.

“We have very good sources, that [say] the only thing that’s toxic are jurisdictional issues,” Meadows said on Wednesday afternoon. “There are no jurisdictional issues with Title I and [Essential Health Benefits] repeal.”

Meadows and his conservative colleagues propose eliminating the 10 Essential Health Benefits that insurance plans must offer, as well as gutting language in Title I of the Affordable Care Act about what constitutes a “qualified health plan,” thus lowering premiums by virtue of weakening coverage.

Original Quill wrote:So much for the big deal maker.  Comes up to the Hill, pisses off a few more Republicans...and goes back to the WH to blow some more snow.

Gosh...I really feel cured already.