basically, you know, life giving elements of health care. what does he say when you talk to him about your position? well, the issues i raised with the president and with our house republican leadership are these. the medicaid provisions in the bill do not provide a soft enough landing. we should be consulting with republican governors who gave us a thoughtful proposal to make sure states have the flexibility and resources needed to care for people. there would not be a cost shift if we adopt their proposal. my suggestions on medicaid have not been particularly well received. the other issue, too, is once people are moved off medicaid, they ll be forced into the exchanges. under the current bill, the maximum amount of a tax credit is about $4,000. i suspect a lot of people won t be able to afford insurance on the exchanges so they ll go bare or naked and they ll be uninsured. those are some of my concerned. too many people are losing
difference between campaigning and governing. ideological purity is a recipe for continued bitterness, a divided nation and stalemate. fail to seek commonalty will threaten more than our congressional seats and reputations, it puts our government at risk. we owe it to our country to do better. congressman dent joins us now. good morning. good to see you. thank you for having me on the program. let s have you elaborate a little bit on that if you would. sounds like you re talking about not just to president trump but members of your own caucus but broader congress about the way forward here. yes, we are. in fact, i guess the big issue is we re going to have another example of just what we talkeded about in that op-ed this week. we re going to pass a bill that will require a bipartisan coalition. there won t be 218 votes for this. we know that. that s the case for the last several years whether it was on
coverage. there has to be a better way to do this. i voted against obamacare in 2010. i ve been critical of the law. it looks like the way the leadership and white house want to proceed is not following your advice on health care but to have a partisan only vote this week on the bill. do you think there will be a vote? do you think it will pass and do you think anyone that votes for it could lose their jobs because they vote for it? well, i don t know if there will be a vote this week or not. like with anything else, there will not be a vote unless there are 216 votes for it. the worst thing that you can do is put up a bill and then watch it be defeated. that s the worst thing for the people to be voting for it. so i really can t tell you today if the votes are going to be there it all i can tell you is amendment that s offered does weaken protections for people with pro exie-existing conditio. that s a big concern for many of the center right members with whom i m affiliated with.
situation again where they can t have a vote. what do they do then? acknowledge they are never going to repeal affordable care act. that would repress the base of the republican party and lead them to tax reform with zero momentum. they are in a tough spot no matter what happens. what is the scenario. forget repealing obamacare. that s not happening in this bill, even getting this bill to the house. where is the middle ground. basically trying to make side deals with enough moderates to get to exactly to a majority and hope they can live to fight another day in the senate. but again, the only reason i think it has a chance as i thought it did the first time, it s too big to fail politically for the republican party. for all the down sides of passing it, what do they say to their constituents? again most of these house members in jere gerrymander districts, most expect repeal. easy to get a bill that will
i said it has to be. this bill has evolved. we didn t have a failure on the bill. it was reported like a failure. the one thing i wouldn t have done again is put a time line. that s why i didn t do that the second time. we have pre-existing conditions in the pool. we set up a pool for pre-existing conditions so premiums can be allowed to fall. when i watch some of the news reports, which is so unfair, and they say we don t cover pre-existing conditions, we cover it beautifully. i ll tell you who doesn t cover pre-existing conditions. obamacare. you know why? it s dead. one of the fixes discussed pre-existing was optional for the states. sure. in one of the fixes. they re changing it and changing. it will be permanent? of course. it s a development. this has evolved over a period of three or four weeks. we really have a good bill. i think they could have voted on friday. i said just relax. don t worry about this phony