Live from the Orange-Haired Baboon Cage: AP: No House vote on GOP health care bill today: "Canceling Thursday’s vote would amount to a significant political setback for Trump and House Speaker Paul Ryan...
...It comes on the seven-year anniversary to the day of President Barack Obama signing the Affordable Care Act, seven years that Republicans have devoted to promising repeal. Those promises helped them keep control of the House and Senate and win the White House, but now, at the moment of truth, they are falling short.
“No deal,” House Freedom Caucus Chairman Mark Meadows, R-N.C., said after he and his group of more than two dozen rebellious conservatives met with Trump to try to get more concessions to reduce requirements on insurance companies. The Republican legislation would halt Obama’s tax penalties against people who don’t buy coverage... cut... Medicaid... provide tax credits... skimpier... allow insurers to charge older Americans more... repeal tax boosts... on high-income people and health industry companies... block federal payments to Planned Parenthood.... A Quinnipiac University poll found that people disapprove of the GOP legislation by 56 percent to 17 percent, with 26 percent undecided....
Obama declared in a statement that “America is stronger” because of the current law and Democrats must make sure “any changes will make our health care system better, not worse for hardworking Americans.”... A late-night meeting of moderate-leaning members in Speaker Ryan’s office Wednesday broke up without resolution. A key moderate... Charlie Dent... issued a statement saying he would be voting “no” on the health bill. “I believe this bill, in its current form, will lead to the loss of coverage and make insurance unaffordable for too many Americans,” said Dent, a leader of the Tuesday Group of moderate-leaning Republicans...
