Republicans from the House of Representatives advanced on Wednesday in their brightness of internal policies, moving through marathon writing sessions that began on Tuesday and extended until night while they scolded on Medicaid and tax cuts.
The meetings in three key committees, a crucial part of the progress of what President Trump has labeled with the “a great project of beautiful law” that carries his agenda, occurred when Republican leaders ran to boost legislation through Thatt begins in the next monument.
Republicans are trying to extend Mr. Trump’s tax reduction in 2017 and temporarily promulgate their campaign is committed to non -tax tips or overtime payments. They want to compensate in part with the cost of approximately $ 3.8 billion of these fiscal measures, as well as plans to increase spending in military and immigration application, cutting Medicaid, food coupons and subsidies for clean energy.
“The American people have us to do this and do it quickly, and we are in the target to do it,” said speaker Mike Johnson on Wednesday morning at a press conference at the Capitol.
But even when they moved towards the approach of the Plan’s winning committee, the Republican leaders of the House of Representatives faced their own ranges that could delay or derail their way. Conservative legislators have argued that the cuts of proposed to Medicaid, who stopped or a review in an effort to protect vulnerable republicans from political setback, do not go far enough to restructure and reduce program costs. They are not happy that the greatest reduction included, the new work requirements for the beneficiaries, will not enter into force until 2029, disbursing any savings until then, after the next presidential elections.
And the Republicans of high tax states such as New York were furious for a provision that would go to the limit of the deduction of state and local taxes at $ 30,000 of $ 10,000, a limit that they consider too low and that was still being negotiated.
The Democrats, who are expected to oppose the already Masse package, have directed most of their criticisms of medical care provisions of the bill, which is estimated to cause more than 8 million Americans to lose insurance coverage.
In three simultaneous meetings that begin on Tuesday, the house panels moved to push the main elements of the extensive legislation.
The Committee of forms and Media approved the tax provisions of the bill, which is estimated to cost $ 3.8 billion in a decade, just after 8 am after a session that lasted more than 17 hours. The committee that excessive agriculture, which is considering important cuts for food assistance programs, chose a different path, taking a break from the debate during the night hours and plans to reconvene later on Wednesday.
The Energy and Commerce Committee of the House of Representatives, whose part of the bill includes important fund cuts and changes in Medicaid policies, advanced during the night. The Congress Budget Office has estimated that the committee’s proposal, which are concentrated in medical care programs, would save more than $ 900 billion in the next decade.
The direct debate about the provisions to remodel the Medicaid program began after midnight on Wednesday. When the legislators, discussing those proposals, the committee had approved parts of the bill that retreated the energy and environmental policies of the Biden era.
The night debate was contentious, including an extended debate about whether legislators should be mentioned by name. A decision that names should not be used to the partial censorship of a poster that describes the high registration of Medicaid in certain republican districts of Congress. (Later in the morning, the representative Frank Pallone Jr. or New Jersey, the committee’s main democrat, broke the rule. “I know that he is not supposed to say it,” he said, before appointing the representative John Joyce, Republican of Pennsylvania).
Much of the discussion focused on the work requirements that the bill would impose to the beneficiaries of Mediciame Adults without children, the centerpiece of the Republican proposal. Politics are expected to expel millions of Americans of the program and reach the significant reductions of expenses. According to the provision, Medicaid beneficiaries would need to present documents every month they show that they worked at least 80 hours or qualified for an exception.
The Republicans defended the requirements, noting that they were generally supported by the public and arguing that they would create incentives for work.
“We do not want people to be in this program forever,” said representative Cliff Bentz, Oregon Republican, Wednesday morning. “And this is a very good way to get out of him and get a job.”
But the Democrats assaulted the provisions of complex reports rules that said they make eligible people lose health coverage. The aid of the Republican Committee was asked to answer detailed questions about what a person who could not present the required paperwork could not present while hospitalized by a psychiatric problem, or if some lose coverage for not working for a year.
Many of the details of the work requirement in the bill were modeled in a program in Georgia, which has resulted in low registration and high administrative costs. The studies suggest that the majority of mediaid beneficiaries who would be subject to the new rules that already work, and previous state experiments with work requirements never resulted in large coverage losses.
The representative Brett Guthrie of Kentucky, president of the Energy and Commerce Committee, said the Republicans had “created this bill carefully to avoid the problems” Georgia had faced.
“We do not want the people who question for Medicaid do not receive Medicaid because or bureaucracy, particularly when they try to work and work paidly,” said Guthrie.
The debate also focused on a new cup requirement so that some patients with Medicaid go to the doctor, a change that some Democrats characterized as a “disease tax” that would prevent low -income people from looking for attention.
The discussion of the tax provisions of the bill concluded relatively more quickly, with the Committee of forms and means that conclude their work around 8:30 on Wednesday.
But at least an important element of the tax package, the state and local fiscal deduction, remained unsolved. Johnson has been negotiating with the Republicans of New York to raise the limit established in 2017 on the amount of state and local taxes that Americans can rule out in their federal yields.
“This is clearly an unfinished product,” said representative Richard E. Neal de Massachusetts, the main Democrat in the Committee of Forms and Media. “There is a long way to go, and my feeling is that only many of the elements that are included here, if this legislation moves outside the committee in the next few days here, it is likely that it will alter substantial.”
Michael Gold and Andrew Duehren Contributed reports.
