President Donald Trump on Tuesday backed a draft U.S. House of Representatives Republican bill to repeal and replace the Obamacare healthcare law and said it was open to negotiation, adding that he was working on a system to cut drug prices.
House Republicans on Monday unveiled healthcare legislation that would eliminate the requirement that most Americans obtain medical insurance and create a system of tax credits to coax people to purchase private insurance on the open market.
House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi said the Republican measure would take millions of people off health insurance rolls and would benefit the wealthy.
The unveiling of the plan marked a key step toward carrying out pledges by Mr. Trump and Republicans in Congress to dismantle the Obamacare law even as lawmakers face pressure from constituents not to throw America's healthcare system into chaos.
In a series of Twitter posts, Mr. Trump called the Republican draft “our wonderful new Healthcare Bill” and said that it was “now out for review and negotiation.”
Mr. Trump, who has previously called for lower drug prices, added, “I am working on a new system where there will be competition in the Drug Industry. Pricing for the American people will come way down!”
He gave no details. His comment sent shares of drugmakers lower. Shares of Pfizer Inc. and Merck & Co. shed 1.1%, and Amgen Inc. dropped 1.4%.
Shares of health insurers, whose industry is anxiously awaiting any changes, were mixed in early morning trading.
The President also said there would be additional action to allow people to buy health insurance across state lines “in phase 2 & 3 of healthcare rollout,” although it was not immediately clear when or how that addition would come.
The 2010 Affordable Care Act, Democratic former President Barack Obama's signature domestic policy achievement, enabled about 20 million Americans who previously had no insurance to obtain medical coverage.
The Republican plan would do away with an expansion of the Medicaid government healthcare program for the poor that was instrumental in reducing the number of uninsured Americans. It also would remove the penalty paid by Americans without medical insurance and roll back government subsidies that helped lower-income people purchase insurance through government-run exchanges.
Republicans control both Congress and the White House, but the future remains uncertain for the plan. It must win approval in the House and the Senate, where it faces a higher bar for passage, before it could go to Mr. Trump for his signature. In the Senate, Republicans hold a narrower majority and some conservatives have already expressed doubts.
The plan was criticized by Democrats and met with scepticism from some Republicans concerned about its tax credits and Medicaid provisions.
Mr. Trump was due to meet with the team of House members charged with tracking support for legislation on Tuesday. Lawmakers on two key House committees will review the bill on Wednesday.
'Obamacare Lite'
White House Office of Budget and Management Director Mick Mulvaney on Tuesday said the plan should pass the House before lawmakers break in mid-April.
Republican Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, who has proposed his own alternative healthcare plan, criticized the House plan as a windfall for private insurers, dubbing it “Obamacare Lite.”
“So much of their bill is a bailout for the insurance companies,” Mr. Paul told Fox News .
Health insurers and hospitals have lobbied lawmakers and the Mr. Trump administration to try to mitigate the impact of rolling back Obamacare, aiming to prevent people who gained insurance through the law from losing it.
Wall Street analysts said the draft bill was within their expectations but they foresaw more negotiations regarding the Medicaid component, which could help hospitals.
Insurers have said that Obamacare does not work. Many including UnitedHealth Group Inc., Aetna Inc. and Humana Inc. have exited most of the states where they sold individual insurance plans created under the law.
Hospitals have been concerned about losing government payments from customers, particularly those in the Medicaid program under any new healthcare law. That has weighed on shares of companies such as Tenet Healthcare Corp and Community Health Systems.
Nearly half of the previously uninsured Americans who gained coverage under Obamacare got it through the expansion of Medicaid, which would end in 2020 under the House plan, then face funding caps.
Some industry groups have expressed concern that lawmakers are moving forward without knowing how much the new proposal will cost or how it will affect healthcare coverage. Mr. Mulvaney told CBS he expected the Congressional Budget Office's review of the bill in a few days.
Ms. Pelosi, appearing on the CBS programme “This Morning,” said, “Show us the numbers about what the impact is personally on people. Show us the numbers as to how many people will be thrown off.”
The Republican proposal would eliminate many of the taxes related to Obamacare but would preserve two popular provisions: prohibiting insurers from refusing to cover people with pre-existing medical conditions and allowing people up to age 26 to remain on their parents' insurance plans.
