The Republican health care bill leapt over a procedural hurdle and headed toward a showdown vote on final House passage Thursday. Leaders predicted they’d deliver a victory for President Donald Trump just six weeks after nearly leaving the measure for dead and days after GOP support seemed to crumble anew.
By a near party-line 235-192 vote, the House added several changes to insurance coverage requirements to the GOP’s prized legislation that leaders had promised to build support from wavering Republicans. A wafer-thin margin seemed likely on final passage, with opposition expected from every Democrat and more than a dozen Republicans.
House approval would send the measure to an uncertain fate in the Senate, where some Republicans consider the bill too harsh. Polls have shown President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul, which the GOP bill would largely repeal, has actually gained in popularity as the debate over a replacement health care program has accelerated.
Since it collapsed in March, the measure was revamped to attract most hard-line conservatives and some GOP centrists. In a final tweak, leaders added a modest pool of money to help people with pre-existing medical conditions afford coverage, a concern that caused a near-fatal rebellion among Republicans in recent days.
GOP candidates including Trump have made repealing Obama’s statute an epitome of their campaign pledges since its enactment in 2010, claiming it’s a failing system that’s leaving people with rising health care costs and less access to care.
Democrats defended Obama’s law, one of his crowning domestic achievements, for expanding coverage to 20 million Americans and forcing insurers to offer more generous benefits. They said the GOP measure would toss millions off coverage while delivering tax cuts to the wealthy.
The bitter health care battle dominated the Capitol even as Congress prepared to give final approval to a bipartisan $1 trillion measure financing federal agencies through September.
The House passed that legislation Wednesday 309-118, and Senate passage seemed certain as early as Thursday. That would head off a weekend federal shutdown that both parties preferred to avoid, especially Republicans controlling the White House and Congress.
The health care vote was scheduled after the White House and congressional leaders barraged rank-and-file holdouts with pressure in recent days and claimed they had the votes to prevail.
