President Donald Trump has more than the Democratic opposition to worry about with his proposed American Health Care Act. Conservatives are pushing hard against it, too, despite AHCA proponents' attempts to persuade members of the House Freedom Caucus with an ad campaign and some schmoozing in Washington.
"Right now, I think there is a charm offensive going on," Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., told CBS host John Dickerson on Sunday's "Face the Nation." "Everybody is being nice to everybody, because they want us to vote for this, but we are not going to vote for it."
Conservatives will fight President Trump's GOP healthcare agenda along with Democrats on the belief the proposed AHCA is merely Obamacare in another form.
"I don't think they'll change votes," Rep. Mark Meadows, Freedom Caucus chairman, told CNN host Jake Tapper on Sunday's "State of the Union" about the political posturing by the Trump administration on the new plan.
"The left and the right who agree on one thing: We have to lower healthcare premiums. If we don't do that, Jake, we have failed, and this current plan doesn't effectively lower healthcare premiums."
The Freedom Caucus, a conservative firebrand, is hard-lining a complete repeal, with or without an immediate replacement of Obamacare.
"I campaigned on repeal and replacement of Obamacare, and so we would disagree on a whole lot of aspects," Meadows added. ". . . We have to make sure we give flexibility in terms of numbers and types of plans that can be bought to drive [costs] down, and if we don't do that we just have Obamacare by another name."
Freedom Caucus vice chairman, Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, echoed the AHCA does not get far enough from the problems that plagued Obamacare.
"We didn't tell the American people we were going to repeal Obamacare but keep some of the taxes in there," Rep. Jordan told "Fox News Sunday" host Chris Wallace. "We didn't tell them we were going to repeal Obamacare and take the Medicaid expansion and extend it. We didn't tell them we were going to repeal Obamacare and get rid of the mandate and bring back the 30 percent penalty in the bill. We didn't tell them they would have an insurance subsidy in the bill either."
There will be some lobbying for changes to the GOP plan proposed by House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., because the House Freedom Caucus is going to vote with Democrats on denying the bill unless there are significant changes.
"What we are hearing is a binary choice, it is Ryan plan or the status quo," Sen. Paul told CBS. "And what he rammed through his committee is his without any amendments and that's a question. If we get what we have got from Ryan, Obamacare light, he will not have the votes and we have to get to that point before true negotiations begin."
President Trump has shown more willingness to negotiate on terms of AHCA than Speaker Ryan, Sen. Paul has said.
"Ultimately, the president is going to be the chief negotiator as well as the commander in chief," Meadows told CNN. "I think we will see a better bill that passes the House and goes to the Senate."