POLITICS

Last-minute GOP push on health care threatens government spending deal

Kelsey Snell, Paul Kane / The Washington Post
House Speaker Paul Ryan winks during a news conference after a Republican caucus meeting Wednesday on Capitol Hill.

WASHINGTON - A last-minute push to revive a Republican plan to rewrite the nation's health-care law threatened late Thursday to derail a bipartisan deal to avoid a government shutdown.

Under pressure from the White House, House Republican leaders appeared to be gauging support for a vote on health care as early as Friday. The move alarmed key Democrats, who said they would pull their support from an agreement to keep the government open past midnight Friday if Republicans brought the health-care bill to a vote.

House GOP leaders huddled late Thursday to consider holding a vote on the health bill on Friday, and to figure out whether they could muster enough Republican votes to pass the immediate, short-term funding measure without Democratic support. That has traditionally been a difficult task for House Republicans, but three senior GOP aides projected confidence that they could rally their own troops and avert a government shutdown.

The spending measure would keep the government's lights on for one week only, giving lawmakers time to finish negotiating a broader deal to fund the government through September. Republicans have stated that they need Democratic support to pass the long-term spending measure, which they expect to consider next week.

The frenzy of activity behind closed doors on health care was largely driven by White House officials who are eager to see a vote on the measure ahead of the 100-day mark for President Donald Trump, while congressional leaders in both parties have been more focused this week on a spending agreement, according to multiple people involved in the discussions who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not allowed to speak publicly.

Even if Republicans can pass a government funding measure, they may not have the votes to pass the health-care bill. A previous version of the legislation was pulled from consideration at the end of March, while the new version is the product of negotiations between the White House, the hard-line House Freedom Caucus and a leading moderate lawmaker.

House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., wasn't personally involved in those conversations, though he was kept closely informed of the talks. He has repeatedly said that he is not willing to risk bringing the legislation to the floor without a guarantee that it has enough votes to pass.

The Senate stands ready to approve a one-week spending measure, but only once the broader spending agreement is complete. Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., on Thursday blocked a measure that Republican leaders hoped would allow the Senate to approve the stopgap budget without a formal vote. Schumer has indicated that he will drop his objections once he is assured a long-term budget agreement is in place, according to Senate Democratic aides.

"Instead of rushing through health care," Schumer told reporters, "they first ought to get the government funded for a full year - plain and simple."

But what seemed like a straightforward agreement in the House was complicated late Thursday by the chaos surrounding the push to put health care on the floor quickly.

Democratic leaders warned on Thursday that they would not support the short-term spending measure if Republicans decided to go ahead with the health-care vote.

"If Republicans pursue this partisan path of forcing Americans to pay more for less and destabilizing our county's health-care system," said House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer, D-Md., then "Republicans should be prepared to [keep the government open] on their own."

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., told a meeting of Democratic whips on Thursday that she had called Ryan and told him there were two conditions for Democratic support of the short-term funding bill, according to aides in the room. Democrats would only sign off on the emergency spending measure to allow lawmakers time to pass the longer-term spending deal, and they would not back the measure if doing so would allow Ryan time to set up a vote on a GOP rewrite of the Affordable Care Act. Democrats fiercely oppose replacing the law.

The sudden turmoil is yet another sign of Congress's inability to meet deadlines for its most basic function: keeping the government's lights on. And it presages fights between Congress, the White House and both parties over spending priorities, despite the one-party rule that gave some observers hope that the gridlock would cease.

Trump weighed into the spending wars on Thursday morning, indicating it was Democrats who bore the blame for shutdown threats because the party was focused on "bailing out insurance companies" while the president wants to "rebuild our military and secure our border."

But it was Republicans who this week jettisoned Trump's top priority - money for his wall along the U.S.-Mexico border - because of widespread agreement it should not be tied to the spending agreement. Trump has also agreed to pay the cost-sharing subsidies for low-income people who get their insurance under the ACA - something he threatened to withhold if he did not get money for the wall.

Ryan on Thursday also blamed Democrats for "dragging their feet" on negotiations in apparent preparation to blame Democrats if their deal falls through.

"I would be shocked if they would want to see a government shutdown, that the Democrats would want to do that," Ryan told reporters at his weekly press briefing. "The reason this government funding bill is not ready is because Democrats have been dragging their feet."

The standoff is the first in what is likely to be a number of budget battles between Congress and the Trump White House this year. Trump has proposed massive hikes to defense spending and harsh cuts to domestic agencies in his 2018 budget, a proposal that many Republicans have rejected out of hand. He is also likely to revive calls for money to begin construction of the border wall-- which by some estimates would cost as much as $21 billion -- in future budget negotiations.

Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., were forced to negotiate with Democratson the budget after it became clear that Republicans don't have enough votes to pass a long-term spending bill entirely on their own. As a result, the GOP leaders have had the uncomfortable task of writing a measure that ignores nearly all of Trump's priorities, including money for the border wall.

Schumer also tried to refocus blame on the GOP, arguing that the only thing standing in the way of a long-term agreement is Trump himself. Congressional leaders were nearing a final deal several weeks ago but the talks were derailed when Office of Management and Budget director Mick Mulvaney announced that Trump would demand that money for the border wall be included in the funding bill.

"Unfortunately the President stood in the way for quite a long time," Schumer said. "That's why we're a little delayed."

Congressional leaders had hoped to finalize a spending deal by mid-week but the talks were still stuck on a small number of unrelated policy provisions, known as riders. Democrats complained that GOP leaders were trying to use the spending bill to cut abortion access and scale back Wall Street reforms passed under President Barack Obama.

Pelosi accused Republicans of complicating the negotiations with unneccessary demands.

"They're mixing apples and oranges here," Pelosi said at a weekly news conference. "They are making matters worse."

Republicans have lodged similar complaints about Democrats' demands for an extension of health-care benefits for miners and money to help Puerto Rico continue making Medicaid payments that were subsidized under Obamacare.

Trump criticized the demand in his Thursday morning tweetstorm as a bailout for insurance companies in Puerto Rico, a criticism repeated later in the day by White House spokesman Sean Spicer.

Spicer said Democrats have shifted their demands as the spending negotiations wear on.

"They keep moving the goalpost," Spicer said. "The issue right now is to make sure that we do what's in the best interest of this country and our people by keeping the government open."

The continued fighting comes despite signs of agreement Wednesday when Trump announced plans to continue cost-sharing payments under the ACA.

Republicans have not indicated how they plan to handle the policy provisions, but most GOP negotiators said they were pleased with the direction of the negotiations.

The long-term spending bill is expected to include several White House priorities, such as increases in funding for border security and defense spending, including an unspecified amount to repair fencing and new surveillance technology to patrol the nearly 2,000-mile border, the aides said. Democrats have said they support increased border security as long as no money goes toward building a physical wall.

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The Washington Post's Robert Costa contributed to this report.