White House, lawmakers adrift over reviving health bill

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration and congressional Republicans remained adrift today over their uphill drive to exhume the GOP health care bill, with no signs of movement toward reshaping a measure that could win enough votes for House approval.

White House officials and leading legislators said they planned to resume their hunt for common ground between conservatives and moderates. A late Tuesday meeting at the Capitol involving Vice President Mike Pence and about two dozen lawmakers produced no agreement over a White House proposal to let states seek federal waivers to drop coverage mandates that President Barack Obama's health care law slapped on the insurance industry.

"The tide seems to have subsided a bit," said Rep. Mark Sanford, R-S.C., a member of the hard-line House Freedom Caucus. Many of its roughly three dozen conservative members have opposed the Republican health care legislation for not doing enough to annul Obama's 2010 law.

Sanford did not attend the Tuesday night meeting but said, "There was not concurrence on where the left and the right in the conference are on the bill."

Rep. Diane Black, R-Tenn., said she is encouraged because "I think two sides talking to one another gives me optimism." Black chairs the House Budget Committee and was at Tuesday's meeting,

The White House offer got an uneven reception Tuesday from GOP moderates and conservatives, leaving prospects shaky that the party could salvage one of its leading legislative priorities. There was no evidence that the proposal won over any of the GOP opponents who humiliated President Donald Trump and House leaders on March 24, forcing them to cancel a planned vote on a Republican health care bill that was destined to lose.