Affordable Care Act
March 17, 2017
Faso votes to move Republican health care bill on
Rep. John Faso, R-Kinderhook, was among 19 members of the House Budget Committee to vote in favor of reporting the GOP’s American Health Care Act out of committee on Thursday. It now heads to the Rules Committee.
The vote was 19-17. Had one additional member voted no, it would have failed.
The committee does not have the ability to amend the bill but did discuss and vote on nonbinding recommendations for the Rules Committee to actually act on.
During the committee meeting, Faso spoke on a Democratic motion to support an amendment that would block the AHCA from going into effect until the secretary of Health and Human Services certified that, as compared to impacts of the Affordable Care Act, the number of uninsured would not rise, out-of-pocket costs would not increase and benefits would not decrease.
“This motion is really just an aspirational proposal,” he said. “It doesn’t offer any specifics, it just says what they would like and what they would wish. It is typical Washington. That’s the problem. People are sick and tired of what Washington does, which is often nothing.”
Faso did vote in favor of a motion to recommend that provisions related to stopping funding to Planned Parenthood affiliates for one year be taken out of the bill. He previously told Republican colleagues that it would be a “grave mistake” to include the Planned Parenthood provision in the bill.
“To me, us taking retribution on Planned Parenthood is kind of morally akin to what Lois Lerner and Obama and the IRS did against tea party groups,” he told fellow GOPers in a closed-door meeting, a recording of which was leaked to the press. Faso’s office later provided to the Times Union a transcript of his remarks.
He then told the Times Union in an interview that as long as Planned Parenthood is properly providing services in a licensed and legal fashion, it shouldn’t be targeted out of “political spite.”
Update: Faso released a statement on the vote shortly before 5 p.m.:
Today I joined a majority of Budget Committee members to approve a procedural step for the American Health Care Act. The purpose of this committee vote was straightforward: to assess whether the Energy and Commerce and Ways and Means committees had fulfilled the requirements laid out in the fiscal year 2017 budget resolution the House debated and passed on January 13. In my opinion, and in the opinion of a majority of committee members, they had. The Budget Committee cannot amend the legislation under the rules of reconciliation; the committee merely determines whether it complied with the rules. A ‘no’ vote would have cut off discussion rather than advance positive changes to the underlying bill for the families and small businesses of the 19th District.
The American Health Care Act now heads to a fourth committee and, likely, the floor of the House for a full vote. During this time I will continue to carefully review the legislation and gather input from constituents, providers, and insurers about how this reform plan will affect them. I will remain focused on keeping what works in the original Affordable Care Act while offering improvements to fix what has failed too many of our fellow Americans. Given these circumstances, simply doing nothing is neither practical nor responsible.