On a call with House leaders, President Donald Trump said he is willing to make modifications to the American Health Care Act so the bill is more palatable across the Republican Party, Politico reports.
He expressed support for allowing states to require Medicaid beneficiaries to be employed to receive benefits and including provisions to deregulate the insurance industry, according to the report. A "person briefed on the call" said the discussion focused on how to improve the bill so it could get enough votes to pass, according to the Politico report.
House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., told Fox News the call focused on how to execute the bill and get it passed. "We talked about dividing up labor, who does what, and how do make sure we just basically stick the landing and get it done," Speaker Ryan said. "We were just talking about details — details about the kinds of changes we are looking at, details about the legislative process, our timeline, our deadline. It was basically just a status check."
Republicans are currently divided on approval of the legislation. The Hill's tracker of Congressional opinion on the bill shows 13 Republican members of the House are currently against the bill and 20 representatives' opinions are unclear or uncertain. To pass, no more than 21 Republicans can vote against the bill in the House, assuming all Democrats vote against it, according to The Hill. Numbers in the Senate are equally divided. The tracker shows one Senator currently against the bill and 19 who are uncertain. However, Senate Republicans can only afford two no votes for the bill to still pass, according to The Hill.
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