News

Trump says he's 'coming after' Meadows over health care vote

By Bill Moss, Published: March 23, 2017

U.S. Rep. Mark Meadows is at the center of the political fight over the future of health care as the conservative group he leads — the House Freedom Caucus — makes demands on a Obamacare repeal bill that House leaders are reluctant to grant.

Meadows' work in Congress these days has put him in the room where the decisions are made — and arms are twisted — and put him in the cable TV news spotlight, sometimes three or four times a day. President Trump singled out Rep. Mark Meadows this week, according to numerous news reports, as he tried to nail down votes for passage of the American Health Care Act, the GOP's attempt to make good on its six-year pledge to repeal Obamacare.

“I’m gonna come after you, but I know I won’t have to, because I know you’ll vote ‘yes,’ ” Trump told lawmakers who attended the meeting, accordind to a report in the Washington Post. “Honestly, a loss is not acceptable, folks.”

White House press secretary Sean Spicer said later: “Mark Meadows is a longtime, early supporter of the president. He had some fun at his expense this morning during the conference meeting.”
Meadows seemed to take Trump's remarks in stride, and told reporters he remains firmly against the bill unless Trump and House Speaker Paul Ryan allow the changes the Freedom Caucus demands. The right-wing caucus insists that the health care bill must eliminate the mandate that insurance plans cover “essential benefits” including mental health care, prescription drugs and preventive care. As long as the mandate survives, the Freedom Caucus says, premiums will go up.

“This is not a personality decision; this is a policy decision,” Meadows said. “It won’t lower premiums, and until it does, I’m going to be a no, even if it sends me home.”

The House is expected to vote on the Republican health care plan Thursday.

"Be assured that there is no one more committed to repealing Obamacare than me," Meadows said in a constituent newsletter this week. "I’ve campaigned on it every two years since 2012—it’s one of the top reasons I ran for Congress in the first place.

"At the same time, the plan presented by GOP leadership simply doesn’t accomplish the goals needed to improve healthcare for all Americans. For one, leadership’s replacement bill does not repeal all of Obamacare. It leaves much of the current Obamacare model--including multiple insurance mandates and taxes—in place. This is not what we told the voters we would do—we campaigned on fully repealing the law, and we should deliver nothing less than that.

"Furthermore, my main goal in any healthcare replacement plan is to make sure that we lower healthcare costs and premiums. Having run the numbers, it is clear to me that premiums will go up, not down, with leadership’s replacement bill. If you remove a pool of healthy people off the insurance market but still require insurance mandates to offer expansive plans, premiums go up. Not only that, but the Congressional Budget Office’s score of the bill says that premiums will spike immediately in 2018 by 15%-20%, followed by only a 10% reduction by 2026. This bill doesn’t do what we need to accomplish—lowering healthcare costs. It would essentially be Obamacare by a different name."