Nancy Pelosi, the House minority leader, said President Trump knows very little about the Affordable Care Act,<br />and called the proposed replacement plan “Robin Hood in reverse.”<br />But among those at the table with the president were Representative Mark Meadows of North Carolina, the chairman of the Freedom Caucus,<br />and Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio, two of the biggest obstacles to any health care bill deemed insufficiently thorough in obliterating the Affordable Care Act.<br />Representative Joe L. Barton, Republican of Texas, offered an amendment on Thursday<br />that would have moved the health care bill in a conservative direction, reducing federal funds for the Affordable Care Act’s expansion of Medicaid at the end of 2017, two years earlier than under the legislation drafted by House Republican leaders.<br />After Halting Start, Trump Plunges Into Effort to Repeal Health Law -<br />By MAGGIE HABERMAN and ROBERT PEARMARCH 9, 2017<br />WASHINGTON — President Trump, after a halting start, is now marshaling the full power of his office to win over holdout conservatives<br />and waffling senators to support the House Republicans’ replacement for the Affordable Care Act.<br />The proposal was supported by two influential conservative groups, the Republican Study Committee<br />and the House Freedom Caucus — and, he said, “the Trump administration is open to it.” Indeed, the White House has begun pushing for a 2017 end to the Medicaid expansion, a senior Trump adviser confirmed — a move that risks pushing away moderates across Congress.<br />And it will allow Mr. Trump to make good on a pledge he made in rally after rally in 2016 to replace Mr. Obama’s law, which he called a “disaster.”<br />On Thursday, two key House committees approved the legislation, which would undo the Affordable Care Act<br />and replace it with a more modest system of tax credits and a rollback of Mr. Obama’s Medicaid expansion.
