The House of Representatives will vote on the American Health Care Act on Thursday.
Republican House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy told reporters he plans to bring the American Health Care Act to the floor of the House and is confident that the bill will pass.
“Do we have the votes? Yes. Will we pass it? Yes,” McCarthy said.
The vote will take place just over a month after House Republicans were forced to pull the AHCA from the floor just minutes before a vote after they were unable to wrangle enough of their members to vote for the bill.
Most projections for the outcome of the vote are close. The New York Times aggregate of unofficial whip counts collected by various media outlets has between 19 and 21 GOP lawmakers publicly against the bill. Due to the universal opposition by Democrats, only 23 Republican members can vote against the AHCA for it to fail.
The move comes after a last-minute effort by the House GOP leadership and the White House to win moderates over on the AHCA.
Centrists had pushed back on an addition to the legislation that allowed states to apply for a waiver to repeal some Obamacare regulations, which some members worried would undermine protections for people with preexisting conditions.
To combat this concern, Rep. Fred Upton on Tuesday release an amendment to provide an additional $8 billion in funds to protect those sick Americans in the event that such a waiver is triggered. Importantly, three of the co-sponsors of the amendment — Reps. Steve Knight, David Valado, and Jeff Denham all from California — were either uncommitted or publicly against the AHCA.
The amendment and a trip to meet with President Donald Trump at the White House was apparently enough to win over Upton and fellow hold-out Rep. Billy Long. Their movement, along with the potential cover it could provide other more moderate members, helped get passage within reach.
Importantly, Upton’s extra funding did not lose the support of the conservative House Freedom Caucus which did not support the AHCA when it was first brought to the floor in March.
A source close to the Freedom Caucus told Business Insider that some members of the Caucus had seen legislative text of the Upton amendment.
“The Freedom Caucus will continue to support as long as there are no substantive policy changes,” the source said.
The House Rules Committee plans to meet on Wednesday night to approve the bill and advance it to the full House.
As reported by Business Insider