so two house republicans have come together to unveil a new amendment they believe is the key to repealing and replacing obamacare. can it work? let s bring back ron brownstein and david chalian and let s bring in april ryan. april, i ll start with you. this is tom macarthur. let me show you what is in the macarthur amendment. states can actually seek waivers to get rid of the pre-existing condition rules. states can seek waivers to get out of the essential health benefit rules. if those are sought, states must enact state high risk pools and that could lead to higher premiums for sicker and older enrollees. it depends. i was around when they tried to
no, i don t like the sound of that. the majority of americans don t like the sound of that and i would ask that the speaker does seem more upbeat than a few weeks ago and has plans are crushed, but for him to go out there and say moderates are going to get behind this, even with the macarthur amendment, we know the plan, 24 million people would lose their insurance. this would slash medicaid by $800 billion. it would also get rid of standards for what health insurance has to cover. when he says people with praises and conditions are not being affected, he s living up to the state and you know as well as i do that there are states that will not work to protect people with pre-existing conditions. jon: ron, what do you think about that? that seems pretty pessimistic. what you want from me? i work in local government as well for red alert politics and i ll tell you, governments close to the people usually know their needs better than the federal government. the second thing i ll s
shopping for insurance, like easier formation of association health plans. all those things we think will help as well. we have to get to those things and continue our quest to get rid of the obamacare law. shannon: i have a lot of tweets, emails and questions whether congress had exempted itself from the changes. something the democrats jumped on right away. republicans don t feel confident enough that they want to exempt themselves. congress and staff members. others have come forward to say it s a technicality and will be ironed out. can you assure the american people what is going on? congress won t be exempt from anything. i don t support that and republican members don t support that. the amendment is written in the way that says states can seek the waiver. that s the way it should be. but any confusion as far as what may or may not apply to congress we ll take care of that and there shouldn t be special deals for congress. that s one of the things american hate so much. what
new health care plan proposed by house gop members. the freedom caucus is on board with this thanks to the macarthur amendment. joining me now is congress member tom macarthur. a member of the financial services committee and moderate conservative caucus known as tuesday group. hi, congress member. good morning, alisyn. in a sentence, can you tell us what the macarthur amendment is? it tries to do two things. one, we need to protect the most vulnerable people in the current plan. these are people with pre-existing conditions. we want to make sure they are protected. secondly, we have to give the states flexibility to bring premiums down for everyone else. sorry to interrupt. that is a tough needle to thread. how are you going to ensure that everybody with pre-existing conditions can still get coverage when one of the tenets of the plan says states can seek
held accountable. last month, the house passed the va accountability act to make it easier to bring the kind of steady leadership that va medical centers so desperately need. and last week, the president signed legislation to reduce out-of-pocket costs for veterans and to promote better access to care. these are all very positive steps to deliver the kind of fundamental reform that is needed at the va. this adds to what has already been a very incredibly active first 100 days. under the president s leadership, we have cut red tape at record levels. cutting red tape saves families dollars, it saves businesses jobs. in fact, we have saved families and businesses more than $67 billion just already. yesterday the administration put out its principles for pro growth tax reform. that s the next step toward overhauling our tax code. and we continue to make real progress in our work to repeal and replace obamacare. as you saw, we posted amendment to the american health care act yesterday. this