In 2010, former President Barack Obama signed the Patient Protection and affordable care act into law. Commonly known as the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, the legislation was the former president's attempt at bringing universal health care to the United States. While the bill did result in 25 million more Americans gaining coverage, 31 million people remained uninsured under Obamacare, leaving it falling short of its goal of delivering universal health care to all.
One of the promises that helped propel President Donald Trump to his November 2016 election win was that he would "repeal and replace" Obamacare.
Last Thursday, after weeks of debate over proposed legislation, the president took the unusual step of ordering that a vote be held on Friday. Then, on Friday, after it became clear that bill, known as the American Health Care Act, did not have the votes needed to pass, Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan announced that it would be pulled.
Freedom Caucus looking for deeper cuts
A big part of the failure of the bill has been attributed to a lack of support from members of the conservative Freedom Caucus who don't believe that cuts to services proposed by the AHCA go far enough. A Freedom Caucus memo drafted by an adviser to U.S. Senator from Kentucky Rand Paul addressed caucus members' study of President Trump's book, "The Art of the Deal." According to the adviser, the president violated one of his own rules from his book, by asking for an AHCA vote on Friday: "never to seem too eager to cut a deal."
"The worst thing you can possibly do in a deal is seem desperate to make it.
That makes the other guy smell blood, and then you're dead," CNN quoted the president's book.
A reader of the CNN piece could possibly be left with the impression that, like many average Americans, members of the Freedom Caucus don't like the AHCA because of the 24-26 million people that were forecast to lose coverage under it over the next 10 years.
Blasting News has previously reported that the AHCA left "Essential Health Benefits," used by families and individuals who manage conditions like autism, in place.
'Essential health benefits' subject of contention
According to the Washington Post, these "essential health benefits" being left in the AHCA is the reason many members of the Freedom Caucus won't back it.
The Post describes "almost all GOP members" holding a desire to scale back the essential health benefits offered under Obamacare. However, Republican leaders, like Senator Paul, believe that a procedural issue prevented the House from adding more cuts.
By using a "reconciliation" process, Republicans, who control the House, have the ability to pass legislation without receiving any votes from Democrats. However, using the reconciliation process, "matters that are 'extraneous' to the budgetary nature of the bill are excluded." This means that if the bill were to pass in the House, and then be deemed by the Senate to have included "non-budgetary measures," it could quickly die.
It appears that President Trump believed that he would be able to force a vote on Friday, which Republican members of the House prepared for by reading his deal-making book.
As a result, one of the president's central campaign promises appears to be in tatters, with calls from the left that cuts resulting in 24-26 million people losing coverage go to far, and calls from the right that such cuts don't go far enough.
