As a call to order a session of the Marathon Committee to cut the cuts and other critical pieces of the Internal Policy Law of the Republicans, the representative Brett Guthrie or Kentucky surveyed an audience room full on Tuesday and requested.
“I know we have deep feelings on these issues, and we don’t all agree on everything,” said Mr. Guthrie, a Republican who is in his first term as president of the Chamber of Energy and Commerce Committee.
It wasn’t being.
Minutes later, a group of protesters at the back of the Capitol Hill audiences, begged legislators to “keep their greedy hands outside our Medicaid.”
They drowned the president’s calls for order, and Capitol police officers finally retired to five people, three in wheelchairs, while the legislators’ boxes on the panel observed. (The Capitol Police then said that the officers had arrested 26 people for illegally protesting within a Congress building).
The interruptions were a strident start for a meeting that was the same and they were expected to continue until well into Wednesday, a committee member estimated that it could take up to 28 hours, since the Republicans and the Democrats rushed, a Keyyt.
It was developed as the Committee of the Chamber of Representatives and Media to consider a tax proposal of $ 2.5 billion that would extend the 2017 tax cuts of Mr. Trump; Temporarily fulfilling your campaign undertakes not to tax tips or the payment of overtime; Clean energy setback subsidies; and create a new type or investment account with taxes for children.
The Democrats in the Committee of forms and Media tried without success to extend the fiscal credits that have helped people buy insurance in Obamacare markets. The subsidies are scheduled to expire at the end of the year, and the Congress Budget Office estimates that more than millions of people will lose coverage as a result.
The representative Steven Horsford, a Democrat of Nevada, proposes an amendment that would have made additional financing permanent. They argued that, because Republicans were using an unconventional form of accounting in their effort to make other permanent tax cuts, they should be the same approach to maintain affordable insurance premiums.
“It cannot be said that it is well to provide tax cuts for billionaires and that can be free, and not provide a tax relief for working families for medical care, for the good of God,” Hey said.
A third panel, the Chamber Agriculture Committee, also with Tuesday night and began to consider a part of the bill that would reduce nutritional assistance to help raise money for the plan.
But most of the drama on Tuesday was in the Energy and Commerce Committee. Duration The first hour alone, the Republicans who gave opening statements were repeatedly interrupted by the protesters who accused them of removing the medical attention of vulnerable people. The legislators of the Republican party, in turn, accused the Democrats of repairing the medicaid cuts that propose to obtain political points.
Mr. Guthrie worked to maintain control over the procedures, at one point presiding over a party of shouts about whether the members of his panel could use the word “lipation” in their comments. (Republicons had leg allowed to say that democrats were lying about THEISM OF THEISM OF THEISM OF THEISM OF THEISM OF THEISM OF THEISM OF THEISM OF THEISM OF THEISM OF THEISM OF THEISM OF THEISM OF THEISM OF THEISM OF THEISM OF THEISM OF THE THEISM OF THEISM OF THEISM OF THEISM OF THEISM OF THEISM OF THE THEISM OF THE THEISM OF THE THEISM OF
Only some Democratic senators came to enjoy the show. New Jersey, Brian Schatz or Hawaii and Tina Smith or Minnesota were present.
That was all before the legislators had discussed a single disposition of the measure. Eight hours after the hearing, the committee had not yet discussed the clippings of Medicaid, focusing on other changes in environmental and energy policy.
The reductions of proposing the bill in the coverage of Medicaid and its expansion under the law of low -price health care have become a point of inflammation for the Democrats and are worrisome for vulnerable Republicans who distrust the politician of supporting the cutting bospers to support Bosser Bospente of supporting Cutser Supergiving.
Although the Republicans of the House of Representatives moved away from a huge structural review of Medicaid, their proposal would reduce federal expenditure by an estimated $ 912 billion and would cause 8.6 million people not to ensure, according to a partial analysis of the Congress Budget Office that circulated by Democrats in the Committee. Around $ 700 billion in cuts would come from changes to Medicaid and the Health Care Law at a low price.
Republicans argued that their proposed cuts would help grow the growing costs of Medicaid by addressing “waste, fraud and abuse” and guaranteeing long -term health programs.
“Medicaid was created to protect the medical care of Americans who otherwise could not keep themselves, but the Democrats expanded the program much beyond this central mission,” Guthrie said.
Its proposal requires more strict paper requirements throughout the program, makes changes that affect federal financing to states and adds a medical work requirement that requires poor and children without children to demonstrate that they are working.
That provision, which is aimed at an expansion of Medicaid under the Law of Health Care at a low price, would not be activated until January 2029, after the next presidential elections.
Duration of their opening comments, the Democrats in the Committee held posters coincident with photographs of constituents who considered the “faces of Medicaid”. Legislators told their stories as a way of humanizing the people who trust the program.
The representative Debbie Dingell de Michigan went directly to a family that had traveled to Washington at the audience, who said he needed Medicaid to take care of a child with Down syndrome. The representative Marc Vreasey or Texas kept his phone to the microphone, inviting a constituent to talk about how Medicaid affected her. Mr. Guthrie ruled him out of order.
Some of the people who stand out did not run the risk of losing coverage under the republican proposal. And the Democrats often stated that the Republican Plan would cause 13.7 million Americans not to surely, inflate the effects of the bill on the coverage of approximately five million people.
Pointing out these discrepancies, Republican legislators accused Democrats of dishonest politics.
“Not a single person in these posters will be affected,” said Representative Cat Cammack or Florida.
“It is unfortunate that people are so in charge of erroneous information,” said representative Gary Palmer, Alabama Republican, referring to a woman who was room tasks by the police after she shouted that she was positive HIV and that the media cut. “
When the audience began, the corridor outside was full of protesters, many of them with shirts or signs that said “hands out of Medicaid”. Others wore shirts that said “struggle for Planned Parenthood.” The organization is directed by a provision in the bill that would block Medicaid of financing health providers who also sacrifice abortion services.
“With luck, everyone understands that the thesis manifestations, people feel very strong,” said representative Frank Pallone Jr., the main democrat of the committee. “Because they know they are losing their medical attention.”
Catie Edmondson Contributed reports.
