Today, the House voted overwhelmingly to provide $36.5 billion in disaster relief for victims of recent hurricanes and wildfires, as well as emergency credit to help Puerto Rico keep its government functioning. The spending bill, known as a supplemental appropriations measure, now moves to the Senate for consideration next week.
Category: On the Hill
House Votes Cancelled
Early this morning, Republican Members of Congress were practicing for the annual Congressional Baseball game on a practice field in Del Ray, VA — a suburb of Washington, DC.
Members, staff, and Capitol Police were injured. The story is evolving. Our thoughts and prayers are with the those injured and the Capitol Hill family.
Read more at Politico and The Washington Post.
House Passes AHCA, the ACA Repeal
By a vote of 217-213, the House passed a bill that would repeal parts of the 2010 health care law and change Medicaid from an open-ended entitlement system to one that limits states’ federal funding.
Passage fulfills a core Republican campaign promise of the past seven years. The measure, HR 1628, moves to the Senate, where supporters will face major challenges in passing it.
The legislation would replace the income- and cost-based subsidies for insurance in the health care law with an age-based tax credit beginning in 2020. It would effectively end the law’s expansion of Medicaid in 2020. It would block federal funding for Planned Parenthood for one year.
The bill would result in the loss of medical coverage for 24 million people by 2026, under a March Congressional Budget Office projection that did not take into consideration recent amendments. That analysis has not been updated. The Senate will not take up the measure until a new projection is released.
The bill would repeal taxes in the 2010 law for wealthier people with investment income, medical device manufacturers, health insurers and others. The CBO estimated the bill would reduce deficits by almost $337 billion over 10 years, under the earlier projection in March.
The House modified the original version by adding three amendments. One, by Rep. Tom MacArthur (R-NJ) would let states get waivers so they could exempt insurers from Obamacare minimum benefit rules and a ban on charging sick people higher prices. Another, by Rep. Fred Upton (R-MI) would provide $8 billion over five years to help people with medical conditions whose insurance premiums rose after a state got a waiver. The third, by Reps. Gary Palmer (R-AL) and David Schweikert (R-AZ) would create a $15 billion federal program to help cover the costs of high medical claims.
Senate Clears Omnibus
The Senate passed H.R. 244, the FY 2017 Omnibus appropriations bill today which will fund the government through Sept. 30. The $1.07 trillion legislation now goes to President Donald Trump for his signature. The Senate tally was 79-18 . The omnibus legislation includes the 11 unfinished appropriations bills and intelligence authorization legislation, as well as funding for retired coal miners’ health care, supplemental defense money and funding to avert a Medicaid shortfall in Puerto Rico.
Trump is expected to sign the legislation, which must be enacted before the current continuing resolution expires at midnight Friday
House Passes Omnibus, Senate Next
The House just passed a sweeping FY 2017 Omnibus appropriations bill (H.R.244) to fund the government through Sept. 30. The House is sending the $1.07 trillion spending package over to the Senate for a vote later this week, likely Friday. The House vote was 309-118. The lengthy legislation comprises 11 unfinished appropriations bills, along with an intelligence authorization bill and other provisions.
The White House has formally backed the spending agreement, and the Senate is expected to clear the legislation as soon as Thursday. The bill must pass the Senate and be signed by midnight Friday or government funding under a continuing resolution would expire causing a shutdown.