President Trump Attempting To Repeal ACA Again

Approaching his 100th day in office without any action taken on Obamacare or the Affordable Care Act, President Donald Trump is back to pushing for a vote on a House bill that would roll back the law established in 2010.

However, even as Republicans in the House and White House officials continue discussing possible changes to the measure, there does not exist much evidence that leaders in the GOP are near the number of votes they need to push the bill out of their chamber and to the senate.

As of late Thursday afternoon, there still had not been a vote scheduled by leaders of the House. The big question is if there are the 216 needed votes in the House and that answer is still not clear, said one senior aide with the GOP.

Trump, speaking during a news conference at the White House, would not commit to a vote saying instead he remained hopeful the legislation would come back to be voted on again soon.

However, even more immediate is the threat of a potential shutdown of the government unless lawmakers are able to agree on a spending measure by the end of April.

Complicating that further are the demands from patients advocates and insurers that the new White House administration commit to providing the continuation of additional financial aid for American in the low income bracket, who purchase health coverage via the marketplace in the Affordable Care Act.

Several lawmakers would like that aid to be part of the new government spending bill. However, Trump suggested he would oppose that to force the Democrats to accept the other changes that are included in the health legislation.

Paul Ryan the House Speaker and a Republican from Wisconsin cancelled a vote that had been planned for the repeal billion by the GOP last month after it was clear too many Republicans who were rank and file members were opposed to the new legislation.

Since that time, many lawmakers have worked to amend the measure to win the support of holdouts from the House Freedom Caucus as well as from lawmakers who are more centrist, many of whom had been not willing to support a bill that would leave several million Americans without any health insurance.

The original measure, known as the American Health Care Act, could have resulted in over 24 million fewer people in the U.S. with health insurance during the next 10 years, according to an analysis from the Congressional Budget Office.