WASHINGTON — Republicans muscled their health care bill through the House on Thursday, taking their biggest step toward dismantling former President Barack Obama's health care overhaul since Donald Trump took office. They won passage only after overcoming their own divisions that nearly sank the measure six weeks ago.
Democrats insisted Republicans will pay at election time for repealing major provisions of the law. They sang the pop song "Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye" to the GOP lawmakers as the end of the voting neared.
The measure skirted through the House by a thin 217-213 vote, as all voting Democrats and a group of mostly moderate Republican holdouts voted no.
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — Arkansas' four U.S. House members have voted for Republican legislation to repeal and replace major parts of the federal health care law.
Republican Reps. Rick Crawford, French Hill, Bruce Westerman and Steve Womack on Thursday voted for the legislation that addresses their longtime pledge to erase the 2010 Obama health care law. The bill passed on a mostly party line 217-213 vote and now heads to the Senate.
Passage was a product of heavy lobbying by the White House and Republicans leaders, plus late revisions that nailed down the final supporters needed. The bill now faces an uncertain fate in the Senate, where even GOP lawmakers say major changes are likely.
"Many of us are here because we pledged to cast this very vote," Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis. said. He added, "Are we going to keep the promises that we made, or are we going to falter?"
Leaders rallied rank-and-file lawmakers at a private meeting early Thursday by playing "Eye of the Tiger," the rousing 1980s song from the Rocky III film.
Republicans have promised to erase Obama's law since its 2010 enactment, but this year — with Trump in the White House and in full control of Congress — is their first real chance to deliver. But polls have shown a public distaste for the repeal effort and a gain in popularity for Obama's statute, and Democrats — solidly opposing the bill — said Republicans would pay a price in next year's congressional elections.
"You vote for this bill, you'll have walked the plank from moderate to radical," said House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., warning Republicans that voters would punish them. "You will glow in the dark on this one."
The bill would eliminate tax penalties Obama's law has clamped down on people who don't buy coverage, and it erases tax increases in the Affordable Care Act on higher-earning people and the health industry. It cuts the Medicaid program for low-income people and lets states impose work requirements on Medicaid recipients. It transforms Obama's subsidies for millions buying insurance — largely based on people's incomes and premium costs — into tax credits that rise with consumers' ages.
It would retain Obama's requirement that family policies cover grown children until age 26.
But states could get federal waivers freeing insurers from other Obama coverage requirements. With waivers, insurers could charge people with pre-existing illnesses far higher rates than healthy customers, boost prices for older consumers to whatever they wish and ignore the mandate that they cover specified services like pregnancy care.
The bill would block federal payments to Planned Parenthood for a year, considered a triumph by many anti-abortion Republicans.
Read Friday's Arkansas Democrat-Gazette for full details.