back to tonight s other big news coming from right over my shoulder, capitol hill, and it is health care. ment house freedom caucus a major opponent . major gop repeal bill officially backing a new version of the bill. no, this does not mean republicans have the 216 votes needed to pass the bill, but it does mean they are inching closer. and even though the house freedom caucus is now back in the revised bill or most of them, what about the house republican moderates? the tuesday group, nbc news now reporting the tuesday group now they re not happy. they don t like the new version because the macarthur amendment which is now in it gives states the opportunity to opt out of coverage for essential health benefits and also lets the states charge americans with preexisting conditions, higher prices than those without. that means if you are sick, insurance companies have the right to raise your premium high, maybe even too high, for you to get health care coverage. speaker paul ryan touti
them gone and some people wanted them kept? where are you now with those? i think that s one of the objects under discussion. look, i m for giving governors more flexibility in states. i m for all of that. that was a big part of medicaid reforms tackled in the bill and giving governors flexibility of block grant, capital allotment, threading the needle between medicaid expansion states and medicaid nonexpansion states. so all of that was very important groundwork, which was done in the base bill. i have not had a lot of governor s offices calling and asking for waiver for essential health benefits. but if that is part of the discussion, i welcome their input and certainly we may hear from my governors and state offices as this week goes on. congressman michael burgess, we will be very interested to see what you come up with this week. thanks so much. thanks, alisyn. thanks to our international
ground. number one, we re all americans. two we re all republicans. this is a discussion going on in the family of is it resolvable, and i believe that it is, and credit to both groups who worked very, very hard over the last couple of weeks. kben, our committee has been providing technical drafting assistance trying to put their ideas into action, put they will on paper so they can be considered by the larger conference. but whether those amendments are adopted or not, i do feel it s time for us to move forward and get the bill that passed out of our committee, which basically was it was a good bill. i ve heard more and more people say that over the past two weeks. i think there is a growing consensus that the product that passed energy and commerce committee, ways and means, and then came through the budget committee, i think it s time for it to have a vote on the floor. wasn t the sticking point in that bill one of the sticking points the essential health benefits, some people
talking about, the most recent issue happening, is the amendment, the meadows-mcarthur amendment. do you think that will be enough to get everything passed? yeah, you know, in addition to mark talking with tom, i think there was also dave swiek earth got together with gary palmer. that high risk pool, that extra piece that maybe is the reinsurance piece was critical also. the other thing, the essential health benefits. heather, there was so much that went into it. number one on my priority list is getting back to congress and making sure there s not a government shutdown. that s looming in front of us right now. that s the biggest gorilla in the room that we have to address. health care we re going to get to, we re going to do it in a sensible, reasonable way that makes sense for the people we represent and the people that we serve. that s the only way to get it fixed. heather: okay. thank you so much for joining us, and we hope everything that you said bears out to be true. we appre
the process has begun long ago, but it really formally begins on wednesday. so that was president trump telling his treasury secretary to get to it, get tax reform done. he s putting pressure on congress to move forward on health care before his first 100 days are over. there appears to have been some progress. the leaders of two house republican groups who clashed on the last bill reached an agreement on language for a new amendment for the replacement plan that would preserve essential health benefits. coverage for pre-existing conditions. allowing children to stay on parents health care plan until age 26 and allow states to seek limited waivers to opt out of provisions. whether the house could actually pass it in less than a week. yesterday, even president trump seemed a little skeptical. listen. how are you going to accomplish all that? it s going to be great.