It's the first test of support on Capitol Hill since the health law’s disastrous rollout. House passes ACA fix

Thirty-nine House Democrats on Friday broke ranks to support a Republican bill that would allow health insurers to continue selling plans canceled under Obamacare through 2014, the first test of support on Capitol Hill since the law’s disastrous rollout.

The House voted , 261-157, to pass the bill by Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.). It’s a significant show of disloyalty to the White House, but House Democrats had expected the defections to be far higher before the Obama administration said Thursday that it would pursue an administrative fix to the cancellation problem.


Obama’s White House vowed to veto the bill, saying it “threatens the health security of hard working, middle class families.” The bill is headed nowhere in the Democratic-led Senate, where a number of Senate Democrats have also proposed their own changes to the health care law.

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Four Republicans opposed the bill — Reps. Jim Bridenstine of Oklahoma, Paul Broun of Georgia, Ralph Hall of Texas and Thomas Massie of Kentucky. Some conservatives had feared the bill could be viewed as making Obamacare “better.”

The Democratic defections largely came from members from the most moderate districts, including Reps. Bruce Braley of Iowa, Ron Kind of Wisconsin, Ami Bera of California, Nick Rahall of West Virginia. Also voting in support was Rep. Patrick Murphy of Florida, where the local Blue Cross plan got significant attention for sending out 300,000 cancellation notices.

But other Democrats voted for the bill, too, including Reps. Peter DeFazio of Oregon and John Garamendi of California.

Democrats had feared mass defections earlier in the week, but Obama’s mea culpa speech on Thursday — along with persuasion from White House officials who came to the Hill to meet with House and Senate Democrats — stanched the blow somewhat.

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In a further attempt to limit the Democratic support for a Republican bill, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) held two meetings with her caucus in recent days with top administration officials, including the president’s chief of staff, Denis McDonough.

Still, the vote lured several politically vulnerable House Democrats over to the Republican side, as the health care law became a major focal point in their reelection campaigns next year. Rep. Ron Barber (D-Ariz.), a top target of House Republicans, said he supported the Upton bill because this part of the health law didn’t “work.”

“It’s a huge bill, over 2,000 pages, there are going to be unintended consequences, there are going to be things that don’t work,” Barber said Friday of the health care law. “And I’m about fixing things that don’t work. I don’t want to see us throw the baby out with the bathwater, which is what some people recommend.”

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Before the administrative repair was announced, upwards of 100 House Democrats had threatened to support the Upton bill because they were worried about campaign ads against them on the president’s broken promise that consumers would be able to keep their insurance plans under Obamacare.

Upton, speaking on CNN Friday, said the thinks his bill — and the potential for Democratic support — spurred the White House’s administrative fix.

“Until they saw that we were going to have some 300 votes a couple days ago, they were just going to sit on their hands,” Upton told CNN on Friday. “That finally prompted the White House yesterday afternoon to announce this administrative change that they’re trying to do.”

“But until then, they were willing, ready and willing to let literally millions of folks who were going the lose their individual policies … go over the edge,” he added.

The Upton bill would allow insurers to sell their plans that were active as of January 2013 into 2014. It was crafted after thousands of Americans received notices that their insurance plans would be canceled at the end of this year because they couldn’t be sold when the new 2014 Obamacare insurance reforms went into effect.

The chief difference between the plans is that Upton’s would allow insurers to sell the plans to anyone, even new customers. The White House contends that doing so would risk skewing the new insurance exchanges so that only the very sick and very costly would enroll.

But Republicans said that if the plans didn’t allow new customers, the old plans would be limited to only existing customers, a dwindling supply that would eventually close the plans, which is what the White House wants.

“Of course they’re going to be eventually be actuarially unsound and collapse,” said Rep. Bill Cassidy (R-La.).

Democrats accused Republicans of being disingenuous in their concern for people with lost coverage.

“Are we supposed to believe this Republican majority is putting forth a good faith effort,” said Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) “Once again, this Republican majority is trying to put health insurers back in the driver’s seat.”

Top House Democrats recommended to its members that they vote against the Upton bill, but they did not formally whip it, according to a Democratic leadership aide.

“This is politics, it’s not about policy,” Pelosi said on the House floor Friday morning. “It isn’t any attempt to improve the Affordable Care Act.”

House Democrats offered their own alternative, which takes elements from a proposal being pushed by Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) on the other end of the Capitol. Like the senator’s plan, it requires insurers to keep the insurance policies open for only existing customers.

It also calls on insurers to let their customers know about new coverage options available under Obamacare, as well as consumer protection provisions that are not in existing plans. The plan would also give state insurance commissioners the authority to investigate “unjustified” rate increases.

But while Landrieu’s bill allows consumers to keep their existing plans indefinitely, the House Democratic alternative does it for one year – similar to the administrative fix.

It “therefore prevents any long-term, harmful impacts on the Affordable Care Act,” said a second Democratic leadership aide, who described the plan as “Landrieu-lite.”

This episode is the most recent sign of Democratic angst on Capitol Hill over Obamacare’s implementation. Obama could see his support further erode unless he begins to smooth the law’s rollout.

As of now, the HealthCare.gov website is not working fully and millions of Americans are seeing their health insurance plans canceled. The relationship between Capitol Hill Democrats and the White House hasn’t been this bad in a long time.

Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said Obama doesn’t have the authority to change the law, only Congress does. Many House and Senate Democrats say they would prefer a legislative fix.

“Working families across America were counting on this president [to] keep his promise,” House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) said on the House floor Friday. “Now, they are counting on us to ease some of the pain that his health care law has brought on them.”

Jake Sherman, John Bresnahan and Jose DelReal contributed to this report.