U.S. President Donald Trump walks from Marine One as he returns to the White House in Washington. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts
By Roberta Rampton and David Morgan
U.S. President Donald Trump was to make a final push on Thursday to get the support needed to begin dismantling Obamacare in the House of Representatives but faced signs that enough Republicans might oppose the bill to jeopardize one of his top legislative priorities.
The effort is seen by financial markets as a crucial test of Trump's ability to deliver on his legislative agenda, including planned tax cuts. Republican leaders hoped to vote on the health care bill on Thursday, the seventh anniversary of former Democratic President Barack Obama signing his healthcare law. There were indications the House vote could be delayed.
Although Republicans have a majority in the House, Democrats are united against the bill and Trump and House Speaker Paul Ryan, who has championed the bill, can afford to lose only 21 Republican votes. On Thursday morning, MSNBC said a count by NBC News showed that 30 Republicans were planning to vote "no" or leaning that way.
Representative Bradley Byrne, who helps track Republican votes, said he believed Republicans had the support needed to approve the bill but that the chances of passage "get a lot lower if we don't do it this week."
Trump was meeting at the White House with some of the bill's strongest opponents - members of the conservative House Freedom Caucus who say it does not go far enough to undo Obamacare.
"We're still open for negotiations," Representative Ted Yoho, a member of the group, told CNN. "There is still time."
A senior Republican in the House, Ways and Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady, said Republicans were getting closer to a measure they could agree on.
"I don't know the timing on this but I know we are getting very close," Brady said on Fox News. "I know we still have work to do to make sure members' concerns are heard."
Trump urged Americans in a tweet early on Thursday to press their representatives to vote for the bill, known formally as the American Health Care Act.
Uncertainty over the bill has rattled financial markets and a failure just two months into Trump's presidency would be a setback for the White House, which as late as Wednesday said there was "no Plan B" for the health care measure.
U.S. stock markets have risen steadily in recent months on optimism over a pro-business Trump agenda, but fell back sharply on Tuesday as investors worried that failure to push through the health care bill could have a knock-on effect on other Trump priorities such as tax cuts and infrastructure spending. Wall Street was little changed in early trading on Thursday.
