Maureen Groppe

USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — House Democrats complained Wednesday that Republicans are trying to rush through a replacement for the Affordable Care Act that they know can’t stand up to public scrutiny, and they tried a variety of legislative tactics to slow it down.

“Democrats and advocates alike will band together to bring transparency to this process,” said New Jersey Rep. Frank Pallone, the top Democrat on the House Energy and Commerce Committee. “And we will expose the GOP’s policies for what they are — a prescription for disaster.”

The initial strategy by Democrats on Energy and Commerce and the Ways and Means Committee — which also began debate Wednesday on GOP bill to replace Obamacare — was to slow down the process in an attempt to draw out the committee’s deliberations.

First, Energy and Commerce Democrats made a motion to delay the markup for 30 days. Republicans easily defeated the effort.

But under committee rules, Republicans were not able to stop New Mexico Rep. Ben Lujan’s request that the legislation be read aloud. That took about an hour. Next Democrats offered another motion, also defeated, which would have delayed consideration of the bill until the Congressional Budget Office issues a report on how much it would cost and how many people would have health insurance coverage under the bill.

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The markup was also delayed by House floor votes forced by Democrats to protest the lack of CBO analysis.

Six hours into deliberations, the committee hadn't dealt with any of the 100 amendments Democrats said they will offer.

“That tells us we’re going to be here a while,” Chairman Greg Walden, R-Ore., said when told in the morning how many amendments Democrats had.

On the Republican side, Texas Rep. Joe Barton said he would be offering an amendment to shorten the time for people who were made newly eligible for Medicaid under the ACA to enroll. In an effort to draw more conservative support for the bill, Barton wants to freeze enrollment at the end of 2017, instead of at the end of 2019.

The bill is opposed by conservative groups such as the Club for Growth, which argue it doesn't go far enough to repeal the ACA.

But it's also opposed by major health care groups, including the American Medical Association and the American Hospital Association, because of concerns too many people would lose coverage. In addition to phasing out the ACA's Medicaid expansion, the bill would also cap the amount of money states receive for traditional Medicaid and would change the insurance subsidies available to those who don't qualify for a government plan and aren't offered coverage through an employer.

Louisiana Republican Rep. Steve Scalise said there was an extensive public debate on repealing Obamacare during the election and voters chose the presidential candidate who promised to do just that.

“If the American people wanted Obamacare to stay in place, they had a choice,” Scalise said.

He said Republicans won’t wait around for the “unelected bureaucrats” at the CBO to score the bill before moving on their promise to dismantle the 2010 law.

Rep. Eliot Engel, D-N.Y., said the bill doesn’t deliver on Trump’s promise of insurance for everyone, which is “much less expensive and much better.”

In the Ways and Means Committee, Democrats tried to use amendments to get Republicans on record refusing to guarantee elements of the new health insurance law that many of them, or President Trump, had promised would be there.

The proposed measures would have required the law to guarantee no one would lose insurance, hospitals would not see an increase in uncompensated care, the deficit would not increase, taxes would not go up on people making less than $250,000, and that people over 55 years old would not lose benefits or pay higher out-of-pocket costs.

Rep. Joe Crowley, D-N.Y., offered an amendment had been offered in 2010 to the Affordable Care Act by Republican Rep. Kevin Brady of Texas, now the committee’s chairman. It required that the bill be posted online for 72 hours before any votes were taken on it, and that every member put a statement in the Congressional Record stating he or she had read the bill.

With military discipline, the Republican majority repeatedly upheld rulings from Brady that such efforts were not germane to the legislation they were trying to amend.

This often led to complaints from Democrats that if the guarantees could not be made, the bill should not be providing nearly $600 billion in tax cuts that were weighted heavily toward people in upper income brackets and would hasten the insolvency of the Medicare trust fund by three years.

Contributing: Herb Jackson

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