Health bill teeters while spending legislation advances

WASHINGTON (AP) — Their health care bill teetering on the brink, House Republican leaders and President Donald Trump intensified their already-fierce lobbying today to save the long-promised legislation, agreeing to changes that brought two pivotal Republicans back on board.

Democrats stood firmly united against the health bill, but they applauded the separate $1 trillion-plus spending measure to keep the government running, which was poised for passage in the House.

On the health care front, Reps. Fred Upton of Michigan and Billy Long of Missouri emerged from a White House meeting with Trump saying they could now support the bill, thanks to the addition of $8 billion over five years to help people with pre-existing conditions.

"Today we're here announcing that with this addition that we brought to the president and sold him on in over an hour meeting in here with him, that we're both yeses on the bill," Long told reporters. The potential defections of Upton and Long over the previous 48 hours had emerged as a possible death knell for the bill, and with it seven years' worth of GOP campaign promises to repeal and replace Democrat Barack Obama's Affordable Care Act.

"'We need you, we need you, we need you,'" Long described the message from a president eager for a win after spending more than 100 days in office without a single substantive congressional accomplishment, save Senate confirmation of a Supreme Court justice.