GOP health-care plan: House leaders meet with Trump as they defend overhaul effort

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March 10th,2017

President Trump met Friday with House Republican leaders to discuss their effort to pass a sweeping overhaul of the Affordable Care Act, amid mounting criticism from conservatives urging them to go further.

In brief comments to reporters at the start of the meeting, Trump congratulated the leaders for advancing their legislation through two committees this week and voiced optimism about the road ahead.

“This is the time we’re going to get it done,” said Trump. “We’re working together. We have some great results. We have tremendous spirit. And I think it’s something that’s just going to happen very shortly.”

But there were fresh signs of discord earlier Friday when House GOP leaders dismissed the suggestion from conservative members that their proposed phaseout of the ACA’s Medicaid expansion should be moved up by two years — from 2020 to 2018.

“I think right now that would be very difficult to do,” said House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) at a news conference on Capitol Hill.

The White House meeting came at the end of a week in which a showdown quickly erupted between the most conservative members of Congress and House GOP leaders. Both sides have been speaking to Trump and hoping he will help them wear down the other side, putting the president at the center of a fierce intraparty clash.

First seen on The Washington Post