WASHINGTON (AP) – Republicans on a pivotal House committee neared an initial triumph in their effort to scuttle former President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul, approaching a pre-dawn vote Thursday to abolish the tax penalty his statute imposes on people who don’t purchase insurance and reshaping how millions of Americans buy medical care.
Yet the Ways and Means Committee’s approval of health care legislation would only mask deeper problems Republican backers face. Hospitals, doctors and consumer groups mounted intensifying opposition to the GOP health care drive and the White House and Republican leaders labored to rally a divided party behind their high-stakes overhaul crusade.
The American Medical Association, the American Hospital Association and AARP, the nation’s largest advocacy group for older people, were arrayed against the measure. Seven years ago their backing was instrumental in enacting Obama’s health care statute, which President Donald Trump and Republicans are intent on erasing.
The hospitals – major employers in many districts – wrote lawmakers complaining about the bill’s cuts in Medicaid and other programs and said more uninsured Americans seem likely, adding, “We ask Congress to protect our patients.” Groups representing public, children’s, Catholic and other hospitals also expressed opposition.
America’s Health Insurance Plans, representing insurers, praised the legislation’s elimination of health industry taxes but warned that proposed Medicaid changes “could result in unnecessary disruptions in the coverage and care beneficiaries depend on.”