The Washington Times: House Republican leaders decided Thursday to postpone a floor vote on a bill to repeal and replace Obamacare, as President Trump struggled to sway reluctant GOP lawmakers in his first major legislative test.
House leaders announced they would not hold the vote as planned Thursday evening, and would meet at 7 p.m. to discuss strategy. A White House official said the move was merely a delay, and that the vote would be held sometime Friday.
Rep. Mark Meadows, North Carolina Republican and chairman of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, emerged from a two-hour meeting with his group of 30-plus hardline conservatives praising Mr. Trump but saying the offer on the table isn’t good enough. He said it’s better to keep talking than cast votes under a “self-imposed deadline.”
“We have not gotten enough of our member to get to ‘yes’ at this point,” he told a crush of television cameras and reporters inside a House office building.
House Speaker Paul D. Ryan is struggling to wrangle in both the Freedom Caucus, which wants to do kill off more of Obamacare in the bill, and centrists who say the bill is already too draconian. Writing in changes to satisfy one group would likely cost him votes within the other, and he cannot afford to lose more than 22 GOP members.
At the same time House leaders postponed the vote, Mr. Trump was meeting with heads of trucking companies at the White House and promising to fix the nation’s health-care “disaster.”
