American Health Care Act

Democrats have owned the debate for two years, while Republicans have had difficulty articulating their side of it.

Senate Republicans advanced an instrument more than an idea for Obamacare repeal Tuesday with a wild vote interrupted by jeering protesters and applause for the pivotal return of an ailing colleague.

Michael Warren is on vacation this week, and Andrew Egger is filling in for him on White House Watch. Michael will be back in the saddle on July 3.

Today on the Kristol Clear podcast, editor at large William Kristol talks with host Eric Felten about the Senate leadership's proposed repeal, replace (or at least rethink) of Obamacare. Can support be built for healthcare legislation that is rushed?

In the first two years of the Obama administration, “Read the bill!” was an effective anti-Obama­care rallying cry. Republican congressmen, as well as conservative and Tea Party activists, demanded that legislation weighing in at more than 2,000 pages and affecting one-sixth of the economy be…

The Senate GOP has revealed its closely guarded alternative to the American Health Care Act, which stitches together significant changes to Medicaid intended to unify disparate Republicans and modifies the House approach to Obamacare regulations in a way that still provoked the immediate ire of…

President Trump urged the Senate to eliminate its 60-vote threshold for ending debate on most legislative matters Tuesday morning, though his reasoning appears to be garbled.

The AARP is targeting five GOP senators in an ad campaign about the American Health Care Act, even though Senate Republicans have said they'll scrap the bill in favor of new legislation that presumably won't tank with the American public.

A new poll shows that less than a quarter of people surveyed support the GOP bill to partially repeal and replace Obamacare.

The Republican party's dream of an Obamacare replacement might yet become reality. But the House-passed American Health Care Act is a nightmare: a labyrinth of policy trade-offs and academic ideas the public has resisted entering. It's currently polling in the 30s—a relative achievement, given that…

Mississippi governor Phil Bryant would waive certain Obamacare mandates specified in the House-passed health care bill if doing so would improve the state's insurance market, Bryant's office told THE WEEKLY STANDARD on Wednesday.

A national survey conducted entirely after House passage of the Republican health care bill found that support and opposition to Obamacare is split evenly among Americans.

Today on the Daily Standard podcast, editor at large William Kristol shares his perspective on the House's passage of the American Health Care Act and the road ahead in the Senate for Obamacare repeal.

The latest version of the American Health Care Act continued to leak GOP support on Tuesday, as Republicans stumbled to defend critical details of the bill that Democrats and outside groups have effectively defined as dangerous to sick consumers.

The term "pre-existing conditions" has become a catch-all to describe a certain category of health status, high-cost medical patients, and a popular provision of Obamacare under scrutiny in the health care reform process. It's applicable to all three of these things. But without understanding how,…

After the failure of the American Health Care Act (AHCA)—the House Republican alternative to Obamacare—there was plenty of blame to go around. President Donald Trump pointed his finger at the House Freedom Caucus (HFC), the group of 30 or so conservatives who largely opposed the bill, tweeting,…

After the failure of the American Health Care Act (AHCA)—the House Republican alternative to Obamacare—there was plenty of blame to go around. President Donald Trump pointed his finger at the House Freedom Caucus (HFC), the group of 30 or so conservatives who largely opposed the bill, tweeting,…

In a flash, Washington changed. With the collapse of their health care plan, the political power of President Trump and congressional Republicans took a hit. And since power is a zero-sum game, Democrats, the bureaucracy, liberal interest groups, and the media were big winners.

On The Right Question, editor at large William Kristol joins Timothy P. Carney and Hugo Gurdon the Washington Examiner to discuss the failure of the American Health Care Act and what it means for President Trump and Speaker Paul Ryan's relationship and the GOP's ability to govern.

This is an updated version of an article that appears in the April 3, 2017, issue of THE WEEKLY STANDARD.

Republicans pulled out all the stops but ultimately pulled the bill.

Sen. Ted Cruz and House Freedom Caucus chairman Rep. Mark Meadows have called on Republicans to roll back Obamacare's insurance mandates in the American Health Care Act. These include blanket requirements for coverage of those with pre-existing conditions: Insurers are prohibited from denying…

Before Republicans captured Washington, the unyielding conservatives in the House Freedom Caucus were a nuisance. Now, with the GOP in control of the House, Senate, and White House, they’re a roadblock to success.

The House of Representatives will vote Thursday on the American Health Care Act, a bill President Donald Trump has enthusiastically endorsed and what the administration considers its best and perhaps only chance to repeal and replace Obamacare. It's the first and possibly biggest test so far of…

Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, said on Wednesday that the Senate parliamentarian has told him that it may be possible for Republicans to push harder on repealing Obamacare's regulations than the current House bill, which contradicts the assertion by House leadership that the legislation goes after…

The House GOP health bill faces more defections than it can withstand from inside the party's own conference, after a spokeswoman for a conservative caucus announced several no votes on Wednesday, and multiple members have warned that several moderates are also still opposed to the legislation in…

The Republican plan to repeal and replace Obamacare is either quite nearly dead or right on-course to become law—depending on which Republican you ask. President Trump's Tuesday trip to Capitol Hill seemed designed to either cajole or intimidate on-the-fence House Republicans to support the bill.…

The WEEKLY STANDARD Podcast with executive editor Fred Barnes on the Gorsuch confirmation hearings, and the future of the American Health Care Act.

President Donald Trump emerged from a meeting with House Republicans Tuesday morning confident that their health care bill would pass the lower chamber this week, even as conservatives continued to express doubts about the legislation's new and arguably improved substance.

Where to begin? Monday was jam-packed with news regarding Donald Trump and his administration. Unfortunately the best news for Trump, a solid first day of hearings for his Supreme Court nominee (more on that below), was overshadowed by the appearance of FBI director James Comey and National…

Texas senator Ted Cruz, one of the leading critics of the congressional GOP's health reform plan, revealed Sunday that he and two of his colleagues met White House officials at Mar-a-Lago this weekend to discuss changes to the American Health Care Act.

The president's health care reform and his radical budget: RIP. And with them perhaps the era of The Donald as we have come to know and love or hate it.

In the hour it was reported with smothering ubiquity that the GOP's Obamacare replacement would cause 24 million individuals to "lose" insurance, the debate about government health care policy was given a bucket of buffalo wings, a wet nap, and a day off. It was about to get sloppy and awfully lazy.

Another day with the same big and frustrating story for the Trump administration: The effort to repeal and replace Obamacare is not going well. The House bill continues to lose supporters publicly, and not just from the far-right Freedom Caucus.

The Congressional Budget Office is finally out with its analysis of the Trump-backed American Health Care Act, and the results are, well, not great, Bob! The big headline, and the big headache for the White House, is the estimate that in less than a decade 24 million fewer people would have…

The Congressional Budget Office on Monday dropped its highly-anticipated analysis of the House Republicans' healthcare plan, arming all sides with results that can back up their favorite talking points on healthcare. The CBO report, on the one hand, says that millions more people will be uninsured…

A budget estimate of the House GOP's health bill has found that millions of Americans insured through Obamacare's exchanges would opt out of purchasing coverage once the federal government stops penalizing them for doing so.

Not much over the past couple of days has made the passage of the American Health Care Act seem more likely. One of the House bill’s chief Republican critics, Arkansas senator Tom Cotton, told ABC's George Stephanopoulos Sunday that the proposal "as it's written today…cannot pass the Senate."

House speaker Paul Ryan got himself into trouble Thursday for broadly describing why the GOP considers the risk-sharing under Obamacare between younger and older consumers a failure, leaving out the details that got reporters questioning his understanding of insurance.

Health care legislation proposed by Republicans to replace Obamacare has received a barrage of criticism from outside conservative groups, as well as a number of prominent members of Republicans' own caucus, such as Sen. Mike Lee. Many have speculated that the current bill is dead on arrival.

Amid unsparing challenges from conservative critics and policy wonks, Vice President Mike Pence said Tuesday that the House GOP's new health care legislation is "the bill" to begin undoing and supplanting Obamacare, and has the White House's backing.

House Republicans revealed draft legislation Monday evening designed to allay conservative lawmakers without spooking moderates, reassure wary voters, and not alienate Democrats too much.