C.B.O Report Leaves Trump in a Political Log Jam on Health Care
“If there was ever a war on seniors, this bill is it,” Schumer said. “It spends more on tax cuts for health-insurance companies and the wealthy than on tax credits to help the middle class.
.. To begin with, the reason the additional measures that Spicer mentioned aren’t included in Ryan’s current proposal is that they would require sixty votes in the Senate to pass.
.. Jim Jordan, the Ohio representative who heads the Freedom Caucus
.. Jordan added that he and his colleagues would offer a series of amendments to the legislation when it comes to the House floor, next week. These are likely to include things like moving up the dismantling of the A.C.A.’s Medicaid expansion from 2020 to 2018, which would only further increase the number of uninsured.
.. If he sticks with the current bill, Trump would be tied to a proposal that would do great harm to many of his supporters and make a mockery of his claims to be a populist.
.. The Trump Administration could, for example, push to take some of this money and make the tax credits in the bill more generous, especially for lower-income people, or preserve at least part of the Medicaid expansion.
.. If the White House preserved some of the taxes imposed by the A.C.A., which fell on people earning more than a quarter of a million dollars a year, it would have even more leeway to come up with a less damaging proposal.
.. Chris Ruddy, the founder of the conservative news site Newsmax, wrote in a piece published Tuesday that it’s time for Trump to “ditch the Freedom Caucus and the handful of Senate Republicans who want a complete repeal of Obamacare. They don’t agree with universal coverage and will never be placated.”