It's no secret the Club for Growth was not a fan of the original American Health Care Act. The conservative group, along with the House Freedom Caucus, helped derail the "Obamacare lite" legislation to the point it failed to even be brought up for a vote.
Since the debacle, the GOP leadership that drafted the bill has been seeking conservatives' advice and ironing out some compromises. They must be making progress because on Wednesday morning the Club for Growth announced they are ready to accept the bill's amendments that addressed some of their more serious concerns. The revised version, Club for Growth president David McIntosh was glad to note, allows states to opt out of Obamacare's expensive regulations.
“A month ago we said ‘conservatives and moderates… should start by meeting together to see what common ground they have.’ Today, we believe the hard work of Rep. Mark Meadows (NC-11) and Rep. Tom MacArthur (NJ-03), facilitated by Vice President Mike Pence, has yielded a compromise that the Club for Growth can support,” said Club for Growth president David McIntosh. “Since the AHCA was released, conservatives have done the GOP an enormous favor by pushing for needed changes that will benefit taxpayers, including the immediate repeal of Obamacare’s taxes and block-granting of Medicaid funding to states. While we’re still short of full repeal, this latest agreement would give states the chance to opt out of some of Obamacare’s costliest regulations, opening the way to greater choice and lower insurance premiums. It’s a solution that we’ve supported for weeks, and the time to move forward is now. There’s still more work to be done on this bill in the Senate and on further health care reforms, but any GOP moderates who stand in the way at this point are proving that they simply don’t want to keep their campaign promises to get rid of Obamacare.”
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Guy published a detailed piece Tuesday that addressed those rumors the revised AHCA could be introduced in early May. That will only happen, both Speaker Ryan and White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said, when they know they have the votes.
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