Pressure on Republicans to revamp health law grows

Associated Press

WASHINGTON

President Donald Trump declared Monday that “Nobody knew that health care could be so complicated.” Yet the opposite has long been painfully obvious for top congressional Republicans, who face mounting pressure to scrap the law even as problems grow longer and knottier.

With the GOP-controlled Congress starting its third month of work on one of its marquee priorities, unresolved difficulties include how their substitute would handle Medicaid, whether millions of voters might lose coverage, if their proposed tax credits would be adequate and how to pay for the costly exercise.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office made their job even dicier recently, giving House Republicans an informal analysis that their emerging plan would be more expensive than they hoped and cover fewer people than former President Barack Obama’s statute.

The analysis was described by lobbyists speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations with congressional aides.

For many in the party, those problems, while major, are outweighed by pledges they’ve made for years to repeal Obama’s 2010 law and substitute a GOP alternative. Conservatives favoring full repeal are pitted against more cautious moderates and governors looking to curb Medicaid’s costs also worry about constituents losing coverage.

But Republicans see inaction as the worst alternative and leaders may plunge ahead as soon as next week with initial House committee votes on legislation.

Trump spoke about health care’s complexities on a day he held White House talks with dozens of governors worried Republicans could shift a huge financial burden to the states by curbing Medicaid, the federal-state program that helps low-income people and those in nursing homes pay bills. Republican governors told reporters later that Trump would describe some specifics of his own plan in an address today to a joint session of Congress.