Will Obamacare repeal break the Freedom Caucus? It depends on Trump.
By David Weigel, Mike DeBonis and Kelsey Snell March 11 at 11:47 AM
The internal Republican battle over replacing the Affordable Care Act has become the GOP’s first chance to break the House Freedom Caucus, the bloc of more than two dozen conservative lawmakers who have frustrated leadership for two years. And President Trump is likely to play a leading role.
Trump’s intervention in the debate over an unpopular ACA revision put forth by House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) has left both the party’s leadership and its rebels convinced that they have an ally in the White House. The president has told conservatives he is open to negotiating changes to the bill, but after Trump met with GOP leaders Friday, his press secretary, Sean Spicer, said the opposite.
Doctors, hospitals, insurers and seniors have all weighed in against the Ryan plan, framing the broader debate over Obamacare’s fate primarily on how many Americans could lose coverage. Republicans, however, are selling their revisions as phase one in a three-phase repeal, so they are less focused on whether the bill could work. For them, the question is whether the GOP can govern without a right-wing litmus test blocking the way.
In news conferences, interviews and PowerPoint presentations, Ryan’s sales pitch has been directed not at industry opponents, but at the Freedom Caucus. Nor has he focused much on the substance of the proposal. On Thursday, he offered his conservative colleagues a “binary choice” between partial repeal of the ACA or total failure. On Friday, he suggested that some were simply being obstinate.
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