Alabama Rep. Mo Brooks is sticking to his guns. Even after a tense meeting in which the President attempted to sell GOP members of Congress on the Obamacare repeal bill, the Alabama Republican has confirmed that he will vote against the legislation on Thursday.
“I’ll vote NO on [American Healthcare Act] b/c it doesn’t deliver on the promise I made to #AL05 to fully repeal ObamaCare,” Brooks tweeted.
The reaction stands in stark contrast to the position of President Trump, who told Republican members of the House that the bill’s passage was “critical.”
“These are the conservative solutions we campaign on and these are the conservative solutions the American people asked us as, a group, to deliver,” Trump said.
Brooks has remained as one of the last GOP holdouts to the American Healthcare Act, which would end Obamacare’s individual mandate and would remove insurance subsidies. Instead, it seeks to provide tax credits to those who pay premiums.
The Huntsville-area Representative has blasted the plan as “the largest welfare program ever proposed by Republicans in the history of the Republican Party.” His colleagues, however, have come around to supporting the bill.
Representatives Aderholt and Palmer had opposed the bill out of concerns that it would negatively impact premiums for elderly individuals.
Rep. Aderholt said he changed his stance when the President addressed his concern by looking him in the eye and telling him that, “These are my people and I will not let them down.”
“After receiving the President’s word that these concerns will be addressed, I changed my vote to yes,” Aderholt said.
Likewise, Rep. Palmer indicated that he would support the Act after having his concerns addressed by President Trump.
“I voted against the American Health Care Act in the House Budget Committee because, in my opinion, the underlying bill was not sufficient to address our healthcare crisis,”Palmer told AL.com.”The Trump Administration and Republican Leadership have since made a number of concessions that I believe would improve the bill, improvements that President Trump assured me he supports and that justify my support.”
