Rep. Mark Meadows conceded that not every American would be better off under the AHCA, but he said the vast majority would be. | Getty Meadows backpedals after claiming all Americans will be better under Obamacare repeal bill 'I can tell you that based on the bill we have today, I don't see really any losers,' he says.

House Freedom Caucus Chairman Mark Meadows said Thursday that legislation to repeal and replace Obamacare currently making its way through Congress would not leave in its wake any “losers” who would be worse off than under the current law.

Pushed on the issue during an interview on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” Meadows (R-N.C.) conceded that perhaps not every single American would benefit from repeal-and-replace, but he insisted that the “vast majority” of those in his district would be better off.


“Well, the way the original bill came out, there was 74 percent of the people that I served that actually would have been worse off,” said Meadows, whose Freedom Caucus essentially killed the first repeal-and-replace measure over concerns that it did not go far enough in undoing Obamacare. “I can tell you that based on the bill we have today, I don't see really any losers.”

“Morning Joe” panelist Mark Halperin followed up, asking Meadows whether he truly meant that “not one person in America will be worse off under this bill than the current law.”

“Obviously, that could be the case. But what I'm saying is the vast majority of the people I serve will be better off,” Meadows said. “When you look at that, when you look at any change in legislation, obviously, to make an assumption that everybody is going to be better is not an accurate statement.”

Still, the North Carolina lawmaker laid out a series of provisions in the legislation that he said will improve health care and lower costs for those in his district. Concern about protections for individuals with preexisting conditions, which has kept some moderate Republicans from supporting the bill, are addressed, Meadows said, by amendments added Wednesday.

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While those amendments, proposed by moderate Republican members who had not backed the legislation, have strengthened the bill’s whip count, it remains unclear whether there is enough GOP support for the bill to pass its scheduled vote on Thursday. That a vote has been scheduled at all by Republican leaders suggests that they are confident the bill will pass.

“My job as a legislator is to make sure I improve the situation. We're down to one carrier in my district. And that's not sustainable,” Meadows said. “And so as we work with the president and this administration, we've got to make it better.”



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