Republican hard-liners threatened to tank President Donald Trump’s “one big, beautiful bill” as they demand further changes, including to Medicaid.
House Speaker Mike Johnson was pushing for the full House to vote on the massive bill as soon as Wednesday, but the roadblock could torpedo his timeline and set the legislation back days or even weeks.
Members of the conservative House Freedom Caucus spoke with reporters as they continued to negotiate over changes to the bill, but said they are not ready to support it just one day after President Trump headed to the Hill to rally support.
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House Freedom Caucus Chair Andy Harris said the White House made the right-wing group a proposal late Tuesday night that they want included in the legislation, but it was not there yet.
“I don’t think it can be done today. I mean, the runway is short today. The leadership is going to have to figure out where to go from here,” Harris said.
Conservatives pointed to Trump claiming Republicans need to end waste, fraud and abuse in Medicaid, but the group refused to provide any details on what exactly they were still pushing to include in the legislation or its potential impact.
The current proposal would cut federal spending on Medicaid by $625 billion, according to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). The savings would come largely through implementing work requirements, increasing barriers to enroll, and renewing coverage and limiting the provider tax states use to help pay for the program for low-income Americans.
The current changes alone would leave millions of Americans uninsured, according to the CBO.
“We demand that waste, fraud and abuse is addressed in Medicaid. It’s inadequately addressed in the current bill,” Harris said.
“We’re going to work with our colleagues to deliver, but there’s a long way to go,” said Rep. Chip Roy. “We’re trying to fix a system that is corrupt.”
Johnson wanted to pass the bill in the House by Memorial Day, but Rep. Scott Perry blasted it as an “arbitrary deadline.”
Another conservatives’ demand on Wednesday involved rolling back clean energy investments included in President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act.
But speaking on Newsmax, Harris also blasted an agreement with moderate GOP members to increase the cap on the state and local tax (SALT) deduction and said it took Republicans further away from a deal because it would upset conservatives.
He said there was “no way” that the bill would pass on Wednesday and suggested they may need “a couple of weeks to iron everything out.”
However, a White House official told Daily Beast there was no deal with the House Freedom Caucus late Tuesday.
The official said the caucus was “presented with policy options that the Administration can live with, provided they can get the votes, but they cannot get the votes.”
Hard-line Republicans were headed back to the White House later Wednesday afternoon as negotiations continued.
