A staff member works at a health insurance counter at a hospital in New York, the United States on May 3, 2017. (Xinhua/Wang Ying)
Multiple allies of U.S. President Donald Trump went out in force on Sunday to promote a health care reform bill that they hope can make past the Senate despite a forecasted overhaul.
Capitol Hill and White House prominent members, including House Speaker Paul Ryan and Trump's Chief of Staff Reince Priebus, uniformly appeared on major cable news networks to defend the American Health Care Act (AHCA), which the Trump administration hoped would become its first legislative breakthrough and also fulfill its promise of "repeal and replace" Obamacare.
House Republicans pushed the AHCA bill past the House on Thursday in a 217-213 vote, which Trump hailed as a major victory in striking down Obamacare, formally known as the Affordable Care Act.
"This is a rescue mission," Ryan told ABC's This Week, adding the AHCA's goal is to lower the cost of insurance coverage and make sure that "everyone has access to affordable health care, especially and including people with pre-existing conditions."
Addressing criticism on the lack of transparency in drafting the AHCA, Ryan said they are "bogus attack from the left."
"The bill has been online for two months," Ryan said.
Ryan also cited a report from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) saying reforms proposed by the AHCA was "in compliance with the Senate budget rules."
The bill has now been moved to the Senate, where GOP members are less eager to bow to pressure from the White House and have threatened to rewrite the bill.
When pressed on the issue by Fox News Sunday, Priebus said GOP Senators he spoke to, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, are "excited and ready to go to work and take the time necessary to look at the bill, make improvements where they need to be made."
"I think we want to let them do their work, let them work this out. They are all very mature. They all know what's going on," Priebus said.
The confidence was shared by Trump himself, who tweeted Sunday "Republican Senators will not let the American people down! Obamacare premiums and deductibles are way up -- it was a lie and it is dead."
Tom Price, the surgeon turned Health Secretary, told CNN's State of the Union that "the winners under Obamacare were the federal government and insurance companies."
"The winners under the program that we provide and that we believe is the most appropriate will be patients and families and doctors," he said.
Acknowledging the angry crowd some House Republicans faced in town hall meetings since the vote, Price suggested that those concerned with the new bill "talk to their doctor, talk to their provider."
"When I talk to the doctors that I used to practice with right here in Atlanta, what they tell me is that the current system isn't working for them or for their patients," he said.
Mick Mulvaney, the White House director of management and budget, told CBS's Face the Nation that the CBO report saying that 24 million people may lose medical coverage after Obamacare is replaced by the AHCA was misleading.
"The CBO is assuming getting to that 24 million is, you get Medicaid for free, but once the mandate that you take it is gone, you will voluntarily give up that free benefit," he said.
"It is just absurd. When that first analysis came out that CBO, we thought, really missed the mark," he said.
The flurry of TV appearances underscored not only the importance the Trump administration attaches to the AHCA, but also the daunting task of pushing the bill through the Senate while preserving as much of the content as possible.
But so far the White House's enthusiasm has only been met with indifference among Senate Republicans, who have formed a 13-member group set to go about their own way in replacing Obamacare.
"We're not going to rush it," Republican Senator John Thune of South Dakota said.
