House Conservatives Push for GOP Health-Care Bill

Republican Study Committee Says Voters Need to See an Alternative to the Affordable Care Act

By Kristina Peterson and Laura Meckler
WSJ, May 28, 2014 7:43 p.m. ET

WASHINGTON—After years of bashing the Affordable Care Act, conservative House Republicans are pushing for a vote on a GOP health-care plan to show they have a policy position beyond repealing the current law.

Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R., Va.) said in January the House would vote this year on a health-care alternative. Four months later, Republican leaders are working with committee chairmen, as well as with GOP lawmakers who are also physicians, to reach a consensus on what that plan should include.

Now, some lawmakers are asking to speed up the process. Members of the Republican Study Committee, a group of the most conservative House Republicans, plan to urge GOP leaders during a closed-door meeting Thursday to move forward with the group's own health-care bill, which would change the tax treatment of health plans.

"Democrats continue to mislead the American people when they say that Republicans have no alternatives to Obamacare. That is not true," the group's chairman, Rep. Steve Scalise (R., La.), said in a letter to fellow House Republicans ahead of the meeting. GOP Reps. Vicky Hartzler (R., Mo.) and Phil Roe (R., Tenn.) also signed the letter.

(More here.)