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 House Republican leaders have expressed confidence the bill would
pass and several party moderates who previously objected to it got
behind it on Wednesday, giving the effort new momentum.
Still, the vote was expected to be close. Even if the measure passes
the House, it faces daunting odds in the Senate where Republicans
hold a narrower majority.
Keen to score his first major legislative win since taking office in
January, Trump threw his own political capital behind the bill,
meeting lawmakers and calling them in an effort to cajole their
support.
Trump, whose Republican party controls both the House and Senate, is
seeking to make good on his campaign promise to repeal and replace
Obamacare.
Aides said he worked the phones furiously.
Wavering moderate Republicans had worried that the legislation to
overhaul President Barack Obama's 2010 signature healthcare law
would leave too many people with pre-existing medical conditions
unable to afford health coverage.
But the skeptical Republican lawmakers got behind the bill after
meeting with Trump to float a compromise proposal that is still
expected to face unanimous Democratic opposition.
The legislation's prospects brightened further after members of the
Freedom Caucus, a faction of conservative lawmakers in the House who
played a key role in derailing the original version of the bill last
month, said they could go along with the compromise.
Millions more Americans got healthcare coverage under Obamacare, but
Republicans have long attacked it, seeing it as government overreach
and complaining it drives up costs.
Called the American Health Care Act, the Republican bill would
repeal most Obamacare taxes, including a penalty for not buying
health insurance. It would slash funding for Medicaid, the program
that provides insurance for the poor, and roll back much of
Medicaid's expansion.
The latest effort comes after earlier pushes by Trump for healthcare
reform collapsed twice, underscoring the difficulty of uniting the
various factions of the Republican party.
Earlier this week, prospects for the legislation appeared grim as
several influential moderate Republicans said they could not support
the bill citing their concerns about people with pre-existing
conditions.
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Putting a spotlight on the concerns about pre-existing conditions,
late-night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel made a tearful plea for
retaining that provision in Obamacare as he recounted a medical
emergency that arose with his newborn son.
Kimmel's monologue about his son's congenital heart condition went
viral on social media.
House Democrats have rejected the latest change to the Republican
legislation on Wednesday, saying it did not go far enough toward
protecting people with pre-existing conditions.
"Republicans have made Trumpcare even more dangerous and destructive
than the last time they brought it to the floor," Democratic Leader
Nancy Pelosi wrote to her caucus in a letter late Wednesday night.
Democrats have long thought their best chance of stopping the repeal
would be in the Senate, where only a few Republicans would need to
defect to stop the law from moving forward.
The difficulty in the House is now making Democrats optimistic that
Republicans will face backlash from voters and face losing seats in
the 2018 midterm elections.
(Additional reporting by David Morgan, Steve Holland, Roberta
Rampton and Eric Beech; Writing by Ginger Gibson; Editing by Caren
Bohan and Robert Birsel)
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