On Wednesday, Republican leaders in the House of Representatives withdrew a bill that would have changed President Obama’s signature health care law. A creation of House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va), the bill — “Helping Sick Americans Now” — sought to aid Americans with pre-existing medical conditions.
In a blog post by Cantor on the Majority Leader’s website, Cantor explained that the bill was created to help the thousands of Americans who are without health care afford the care they need. The bill was backed by about 15 organizations, including the Adult Congenital Heart Association, the Hemophilia Federation of America and the Immune Deficiency Foundation.
The legislation was pulled before members were able to cast a vote, likely because the bill lacked support from members of the Republican Party at the behest of the group, Club for Growth, which cast the bill as a costly boondoggle that would do nothing to dismantle Obamacare.
Andy Roth is a vice president of Club for Growth. He wrote to lawmakers last week encouraging politicians and groups to oppose the “Helping Sick Americans Now” bill, writing that “fiscal conservatives should be squarely focused on repealing Obamacare, not strengthening it by supporting the parts that are politically attractive.”
Heritage Action, the political arm of the the conservative Heritage Foundation, also announced it was opposed to Cantor’s proposed legislation.
Democrats had not supported the bill, either, as it would have reallocated money — about $4 billion — from a special Prevention and Public Health Fund that the Obama administration had created to finance the health insurance exchange program. This meant that it was solely fell on the Republican Party to pass the legislation.
Hypocritical legislation?
Speaking on Wednesday at a press conference, Rep. Raul Labrador (R-Idaho) said he agreed with House Republican leaders’ goal to brush up the party’s image with voters and withdraw the bill.
“I agree with [Cantor’s] premise that we need to do something about the struggles of ordinary Americans. Subsidizing the struggles of ordinary Americans is not the solution to the questions that we are facing,” he said.
“Subsidizing health care is not what Republicans should be about. Republicans should be about managing health care” to lower costs for Americans,” Labrador said. “The issue I think many of us are having with this particular piece of legislation … you’re replacing one big government program with another big government program.”
Replacing one big program with another is not the GOP way, say Congressional freshmen from the Republican Party — who want their chance to vote to repeal Obamacare, not extend it.
Though the Republican-controlled House has tried to repeal or defund the entire Affordable Care Act more than 30 times since it was passed in 2010, first-term Rep. Trey Radel (R-Fla.) says he wants his chance to vote against the law.
“Even if it’s just symbolic — and even if we understand that process-wise we are not going to be able to say, ‘Okay, we want repeal, it’s done and it’s over.’ But this is the issue that so many people around the country who love the Republican Party are frustrated with,” Radel said.
Cantor himself withdrew the bill, and said that while “helping the sick people” was a worthy cause for conservatives, that bill was not the right way to do it. He added that the party was working on alternative solutions.
A spokesman for Cantor, Doug Heye, said that the Congressman “absolutely intends to bring this legislation back up.” But whether or not his Republican colleagues will support an updated version remains to be seen.