House GOP leadership, ‘Young Guns’ retreat on health vote
The House Republican leaders suffered a humiliating legislative setback Wednesday when a large faction of its members rebelled against a leadership proposal that had drawn the opposition of powerful outside activists.
The mutiny forced House Majority Leader Eric I. Cantor (R-Va.) to abruptly pull from the floor legislation to shore up a program that allows people with pre-existing health conditions to buy into an insurance pool for high-risk patients before they are able to transition to coverage under President Obama’s new health-care law.
The measure is part of Cantor’s effort to rebrand the GOP following embarrassing defeats in the 2012 presidential and Senate races, but it quickly found resistance among conservative activists.
The Club for Growth led a contingent of right-leaning groups that urged Republican lawmakers to oppose the bill casting it as a costly boondoggle that does nothing to dismantle the Obama health-care law.
“Fiscal conservatives should be squarely focused on repealing Obamacare, not strengthening it by supporting the parts that are politically attractive,” Andy Roth, a vice president of Club for Growth, wrote to lawmakers last week. Heritage Action, the political arm of the the conservative Heritage Foundation, joined in the opposition.
Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/house-gop-leadership-young-guns-near-showdown-on-health-vote/2013/04/24/c0fbfa50-ab90-11e2-b6fd-ba6f5f26d70e_story.html?hpid=z2
