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House Republicans, despite stiff political headwinds, are readying an ambitious push this week to begin moving legislation to replace major parts of the Affordable Care Act, a crucial test of their ability to fulfill one of their partys main campaign promises.

The plan marks the first time GOP lawmakers will do this since Obamacare was enacted seven years ago and will provide an early indication of whether President Trump can rally his partys members of Congress, many of whom are anxious about how to repeal and replace the healthcare law.

The legislation could affect health insurance for tens of millions of Americans not only those with Obamacare coverage, but also people with employer-provided insurance and Medicaid.

The House legislation which was being finalized over the weekend, according to GOP officials aims to fundamentally restructure the system that Obamacare created, which has extended health coverage to more than 20 million previously uninsured Americans.

GOP plans call for scrapping insurance marketplaces that require insurers to offer a basic set of benefits and that provide government subsidies to help low- and moderate-income Americans who dont get health benefits at work to buy health plans.

Republican legislation would lift many requirements for benefits that plans must cover. And it would create a new system of subsidies that are linked to consumers age, rather than their income, according to leaked drafts. That would make insurance harder to buy for millions of Americans, especially low-income working people, outside analyses suggest.

GOP leaders would eliminate taxes that have helped offset the cost of Obamacares coverage expansion, including taxes on medical device makers and insurance companies and on households making more than $250,000 a year.

Instead, Republicans are proposing to tax the health insurance that employers provide their workers. Employer-provided benefits are currently tax-free. The change could cause the price of insurance that many Americans get on the job to go up.

The House plan would phase out hundreds of billions of dollars in federal aid that has allowed many states to expand their Medicaid programs to millions more poor Americans.

House Republicans also want to give states more flexibility to reshape their Medicaid programs, allowing states to potentially limit benefits or require poor patients to pay more for their medical care.

The GOP plan would eliminate Obamacares unpopular insurance mandate, which requires Americans to have health insurance or pay a penalty.

In its place, House Republicans have proposed to allow insurers to charge higher premiums to Americans who let their insurance lapse.

Most of these proposals are deeply controversial, even within Republican ranks. That is a big reason why Republicans have not previously moved forward with a plan to replace Obamacare.

"There is not a consensus at this point," Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) said Sunday on CBS News Face the Nation.

White House officials and senior GOP lawmakers nevertheless are sounding upbeat.

We're putting the finishing touches on our plan, Vice President Mike Pence said in Wisconsin on Friday on a trip with Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price to visit House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) in his district.

And House Ways and Means Committee chairman Kevin Brady (R-Texas), whose committee could hold a hearing on proposed legislation as soon as this week, said hes confident the president is behind the House plan. There was no mistaking he is exactly on the same page as House Republicans, Brady said.

Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) have suggested Congress could send President Trump legislation as soon as this month, even though Republican leaders as of Sunday had still not released the text of their healthcare legislation.

Obamacare 101: A periodic primer on the Affordable Care Act

While the Republican-led Congress did pass a bill to repeal large parts of Obamacare, which President Obama vetoed last year, this marks the first time the party will offer a replacement bill and subject it to the scrutiny of congressional hearings and the legislative process.

But the GOP faces mounting opposition from major advocacy groups representing patients, doctors, hospitals and now even businesses, a traditional Republican ally.

At the same time, internal GOP divisions threaten to derail the legislative campaign before it even gets off the ground.

Leading conservatives in the House and Senate have said they will oppose any legislation that does not fully repeal Obamacare, while many Republican senators and governors representing states with major coverage gains have voiced serious reservations about rolling back too much of the existing law.

Conservatives have criticized the House GOP plan as Obamacare-lite, accusing party leaders of replacing one tax-funded government entitlement with another.

Theyre going to have a new tax, a new government subsidy program and a new [insurance] mandate, charged Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), who has rallied against the plan with the conservative House Freedom Caucus and influential outside groups such as Heritage Action and the Club for Growth.

Speaker Ryan and Leader McConnell need to stand up to those in the Republican Party who are fighting to retain and repair Obamacare, rather than repeal and replace it, said David McIntosh, president of the free market advocacy group Club for Growth, which is known for backing primary election challenges to wayward Republicans.

Together, the conservatives have the votes to potentially tank the House GOP plan because to pass any healthcare legislation, Republican leaders cannot afford to lose more than 18 votes in the House.

Their margins, especially in the Senate, but also in the House, are thin, warned National Retail Federation vice president Neil Trautwein, a former aid to McConnell.

They have a better chance of getting this out of the House, but its not automatic, even though they are taking draconian steps to get their caucus in line. And what they are doing with this secrecy and locked rooms isnt helping.

House Republican leaders came under fire last week for only allowing committee members to view drafts of proposed healthcare legislation in a first-floor room of the Capitol that was off limits to Democrats and even Senate Republicans.

Many advocacy organizations are urging House Republicans to slow down and allow more time for independent assessments of the legislation.

To date, the independent Congressional Budget Office, which lawmakers rely on to calculate the effect of proposed bills, has not released an estimate of how much Republicans plans would cost and how many people could lose health coverage.

Making substantial changes to our healthcare system by changing current law would impact tens of millions of our patients, Dr. Nitin S. Damle, president of the American College of Physicians, said in a letter to House committee leaders last week.

Congress therefore must avoid any unintended adverse consequences, the letter said, calling for an open and transparent legislative process.

Under the current GOP plan, the House Energy and Commerce and Ways and Means committees are expected to hold hearings on different pieces of the legislation as soon as this week.

That could allow the full House to vote on an Obamacare repeal bill by as early as the end of the month and send it to the Senate, where a much longer debate is expected.

John Desser, a former health official in the George W. Bush administration and former aide to Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), predicted Ryan would rally his caucus and get the 218 votes hell need.

The speaker has lived and breathed health policy for over two decades, and may just be perfectly positioned to bring together his conference and explain the opportunity they have to get this right to reluctant or recalcitrant members, he said.

But Desser, now a vice president for eHealth, an online insurance marketplace, cautioned that other challenges await.

Getting it through the Senate after that may require the gravity-defying leadership of Mr. Trump and his team, he said.

noam.levey@latimes.com

@noamlevey

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Facing big political hurdles, House Republicans ready an ambitious legislative push to repeal Obamacare - Los Angeles Times

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump peers out into the crowd during a campaign event at the International Air Response facility on December 16, 2015 in Mesa, Arizona.Ralph Freso Getty Images

Updated: Mar 05, 2017 8:04 PM UTC

Republican lawmakers want more information from President Trump following his unsubstantiated allegations that former President Obama had wiretapped Trump Tower during the 2016 election.

Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, a member of the Senate intelligence committee that is currently investigating Trump's team's ties to Russia, said Sunday during a "Meet The Press" interview that he has seen "no evidence" to support Trump's claims that were laid out in a series of tweets early Saturday morning .

"I'd imagine the President and the White House in the days to come will outline further what was behind that accusation," Rubio said. "The President put that out there, and now the White House will have to answer as to exactly what he was referring to."

And while many prominent Republicans have not addressed the topic, a few others joined Rubio in asking the President to release more information regarding his allegations, which Trump likened in a tweet to "Nixon/Watergate."

"It would be more helpful if he turned over to the intelligence committee any evidence he has," Maine Sen. Susan Collins, who is also a member of the Senate intelligence committee, said Sunday on CBS's Face the Nation .

Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton echoed his colleagues during an interview on Fox News Sunday . "It doesn't mean that none of these things have happened, just means I haven't seen them yet," he said.

Trump has not clarified the source of his information, but many have pointed to a Brietbart News story that was broadcast Friday about the FBI obtaining warrants to monitor his campaign as part of an investigation into its alleged Russian ties.

Press Secretary Sean Spicer called on Congress to conduct a probe and called the news "very troubling" in a statement Sunday.

House Intelligence chairman Devin Nunes said on Sunday that his panel will include Trump's allegations into his current investigation of Russia meddling in the 2016 election. The committee "will make inquiries into whether the government was conducting surveillance activities on any political party's campaign officials or surrogates," Nunes said in a statement.

More here:
'No Evidence': Republican Lawmakers Want Answers About President Trump's Wiretapping Claim - Fortune

Republicans on Capitol Hill are turning their attention to repealing another signature accomplishment of President Obama: the 2010 Wall Street reform law.

Key lawmakers are eyeing a special budgetary to pass repeal legislation in the Senate on a simple majority vote, bypassing Democrats.

Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.), a senior member of the Senate Banking Committee, says the budgetary process known as reconciliation, which can be used to circumvent the filibuster, should be considered as a tool to roll back burdensome Obama-era regulations on the financial sector.

Some Republicans say that rolling back the Wall Street reform law should be one of their highest priorities.

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin HatchOrrin HatchRepublicans eye strategy for repealing Wall Street reform Two Republicans sign on to effort demanding Trumps tax returns Senate panel approves pick for Medicaid and Medicare chief MORE (R-Utah) told Bloomberg television last month that the law is worse than ObamaCare.

I think its one of the worst bills thats ever been passed through Congress, Hatch said, adding that he did not think any of its provisions were worth saving.

Senate Democratic Leader Charles SchumerCharles SchumerConservative radio host: 'Evidence is overwhelming' of Obama spying Pelosi rips Trump tweets: 'Deflector-in-Chief is at it again' Top Obama adviser to Trump: 'No president can order a wiretap' MORE (N.Y.) in November said he had enough votes to block any Republican efforts to repeal key parts of the Wall Street reform law, known as Dodd-Frank.

But it would be considerably harder for Schumer to stand in the way if Republicans use reconciliation to repeal the parts of Dodd-Frank that affect government spending and revenues.

Democrats "don't have to agree to everything on reconciliation, Shelby noted.

Asked whether congressional committees would be given instructions to repeal parts of the Wall Street reform law in a budget resolution later this year, Shelby said, "We've been talking about a lot of stuff."

The effort has been kept largely quiet, however. It was not one of the items highlighted on the 200-day agenda that Republicans discussed at their annual retreat in Philadelphia, and President Trump did not mention Wall Street during his address to a joint session of Congress on Tuesday.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnellMitch McConnellRepublicans eye strategy for repealing Wall Street reform House, Senate leaders avoid holding town halls Pressure mounts on GOP leaders to back special counsel MORE (R-Ky.) has announced that the second budget resolution that Republicans plan to pass this spring will have instructions to protect tax reform from Democratic filibusters.

But its possible to include multiple instructions so that the resolution includes the Banking Committee, which has jurisdiction over financial industry regulations, as well as the Finance Committee, which is in charge of taxes.

Budget Committee Chairman Mike EnziMike EnziRepublicans eye strategy for repealing Wall Street reform Lawmakers fundraise amid rising town hall pressure A guide to the committees: Senate MORE (R-Wyo.) said reconciliation instructions affecting the Wall Street reform law could be included in the next budget resolution, which will cover fiscal 2018. But he declined to tip his hand about whether that was a certainty.

"I just work the problem until Ive got a solution," he said.

Trump signed an executive order early last month giving the Treasury Department authority to change key provisions of Dodd-Frank to align with several goals laid out by his administration, such as to make regulation efficient, effective and appropriately tailored.

The president said regulations created under the 2010 law have chilled economic activity.

I have so many people, friends of mine, that have nice businesses that cant borrow money, Trump said. The banks just wont let them borrow because of the rules and regulations in Dodd-Frank.

Democrats say the Republican plan to gut the reform law with only 51 votes would likely run afoul of the Senates Byrd rule, named after the late Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.), which limits what legislation can be passed under reconciliation.

How would they use reconciliation? Its not budgetary, said a Senate Democratic aide.

A former Democrat aide who served in the Senate during passage of the Wall Street reform law seven years ago, however, said Republicans could attempt to target spending on regulation of the financial services industry.

They could target provisions in Dodd-Frank that govern funding such as that they might have been charging or fines they were imposing on banks. That sort of thing they could go after, the Democratic source said.

The Congressional Budget Office estimated in 2011 that the Wall Street law would increase government revenues by $13.4 billion and spending by $10.2 billion over a 10-year period. It projected the law would reduce deficits by $3.2 billion.

Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.), a veteran member of the Banking Committee, is leading the review of the budget rules to determine what parts of the law can be undone with 51 votes.

We need to make a number of really substantial reforms to Dodd-Frank, Toomey told the Wall Street Journal in December. I am very much in favor of making sure we have all the tools to do this.

Aside from the challenge of getting the Senate parliamentarian who decides whats eligible for special budgetary protection to sign off on the plan, Shelby and Toomey may have trouble convincing some moderate Republicans to go along.

Schumer in November predicted in November that some Republicans would side with Democrats in blocking efforts to weaken the law. Yet Republicans could try to make up for lost votes by targeting red-state Democrats who are up for reelection in 2018.

Republicans from agricultural states say tighter regulations on banks has made it tougher for farmers to obtain financing now that commodity prices are slumping.

Link:
Republicans eye strategy for repealing Wall Street reform - The Hill

PORTLAND, Maine Republican leaders in Maine and Utah are asking President Donald Trump to step into uncharted territory and rescind national monument designations made by his predecessor.

The Antiquities Act of 1906 doesn't give the president power to undo a designation, and no president has ever taken such a step. But Trump isn't like other presidents.

Former President Barack Obama used his power under the act to permanently preserve more land and water using national monument designations than any other president. The land is generally off limits to timber harvesting, mining and pipelines, and commercial development.

Obama created the Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument in Maine last summer on 87,500 acres of donated forestland. The expanse includes part of the Penobscot River and stunning views of Mount Katahdin, Maine's tallest mountain. In Utah, the former president created Bears Ears National Monument on 1.3 million acres of land that's sacred to Native Americans and is home to tens of thousands of archaeological sites, including ancient cliff dwellings.

Trump's staff is now reviewing those decisions by the Obama administration to determine economic impacts, whether the law was followed and whether there was appropriate consultation with local officials, the White House told The Associated Press.

Maine Republican Gov. Paul LePage is opposed to the designation, and says federal ownership could stymie industrial development; and Republican leaders in Utah contend the monument designation adds another layer of unnecessary federal control in a state where there's already heavy federal ownership.

The Utah Legislature approved a resolution signed by the governor calling on Trump to rescind the monument there. In Maine, LePage asked the president last week to intervene.

Newly sworn-in Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke has said he'll fight the sale or transfer of public lands. But he also believes states should be able to weigh in. The National Parks Conservation Association has vowed to sue if Trump, the Interior Department or Congress tries to remove the special designations.

"Wherever the attack comes from, we're ready to fight, and we know the public is ready to fight if someone comes after our national parks and monuments," National Parks Conversation Association spokeswoman Kristen Brengel said.

In Maine, the prospect of undoing the designation is further complicated by deed stipulations requiring the National Park Service to control the land and a $40 million endowment to support the monument, said Lucas St. Clair, son of Burt's Bees co-founder Roxanne Quimby, who acquired the land.

Three of the four members of Maine's congressional delegation want the monument to stand to avoid reopening a divisive debate in towns surrounding the property.

"Rather than re-ignite controversy in a region that is beginning to heal and move on, I hope we can allow the monument to continue to serve as one important part of a multifaceted economic revitalization strategy which is already underway," said independent Sen. Angus King.

Utah Republicans, however, appear to be ready for a scrap. Rep. Jason Chaffetz raised the issue when he met with Trump and he asked the House Appropriations Committee to cut funding for the monument.

"Not one elected official in Utah that represents the Bear Ears region supports the designation of a national monument. With the stroke of a pen, President Obama, having never visited the area, created a monument the size of Delaware, Rhode Island and Washington, D.C., combined," he said.

In the region near Maine's Mount Katahdin, both supporters and many opponents want to see the monument work. They hope it will help revitalize the economy.

Millinocket Town Council Chairman Michael Madore once described the park as a "foolish dream." Now, he says, "We have accepted it as part of our landscape. Until such time as it's overturned, we're going to work with the people who're involved with it to help the local economy."

Link:
Republicans in Maine, Utah want Trump to undo monuments - Fox News

Quora Questions are part of a partnership between NewsweekandQuora, through which we'll be posting relevant and interesting answers from Quora contributors throughout the week. Read more about the partnershiphere.

Answer from Brad Porter, political watcher, writer and occasional worker:

Who is the de facto leader of the opposition for the Trump Administration in 2017?There are sort of two ways you could take this. The first sense is the practicalwho has the authority to oversee the policies of President Trump and check or push back against them in some meaningful way? In that sense, the real answer is the judicial branch. But the de facto leaders of the opposition to the Trump administration in 2017 are not, in fact, Democrats at all. Rather, they are the congressional Republicans. They are what willor will notstand in the way of bad Trump policies, and they are from whom checks and balances will have to come, if they are to come at all.

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The two men who will largely determine the course of the Trump Administration are Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell. Granted, Democrats will stand in opposition, but ultimately, theyre going to be in the minority in Congress at least for the next few years. As such, they are severely handicapped in what they will be able to accomplish, in terms of meaningful opposition. Trump has made it relatively clear that he has no interest in working with them, could not care less about their dissent, and has no plans to somehow appeal to or work with them. As such, there is not much of a political or practical cost that the Dems can inflict on Trump directly. Oh they can hold some stuff up, and they can certainly complain, but they simply dont have the critical mass needed to actually get in the way of policy. Trump and the GOP can more or less restrict them to booing on the sidelines.

That is, if the Republican caucus stays in Trumps camp.

Ultimately, much of the success or failure regarding Trumps ability to execute his policies is going to come down to whether the GOP congressional leadership stays on board, or not. If the Democrats can start peeling away Republican congressmen and start cobbling together some kind of working majority that way, then meaningful opposition to Trump can begin. Alternatively, the GOP can deny them that, but to do that they will likely have to exact some kind of influence on Trump to tamp down the worst of his excessesthey can do some inside dirty boxing and horse-trading to try to piece out of Trumps platform some kind of workable policy and talking point structure that their members can take back to their voters.

President Donald Trump delivers his first address to a joint session of Congress in Washington, D.C., on February 28th. Trump cleverly used race and rhetoric to bolster his hardline nationalist policies on trade and immigration. REUTERS/Jim Lo Scalzo

Right now, Trump has all the leverage, as hes the new president, and the Republican congressional leadership appears to be taking a mostly hands-off (or rather stay out of the way) approach. But as time goes on, that pendulum is going to swing the other way, and Trump will have to rely on Ryan and McConnell to get anything substantial done (and moderate or blue state Republicans who they will need to keep in line). Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer will certainly play roles in that, but as supporting players more than leads.

Likewise, in addition to an actual proactive agenda and legislation, any investigations, subpoenas, or direct blowback against executive overreach will have to be at the instigation of congressional Republicans. Again, the Democrats have some options, but at the end of the day, all roads will have to go through the congressional Republican caucus one way or another (note: this all changes if the Dems win a majority back, but the map for them in 2018 is tough as hell so realistically I dont know that that happens during Trumps first term).

The second way to take this question is more in the moral or political sensewho has the standing and platform to criticize Trump and rally support against him? Whose criticisms might go the farthest in spurring actual action?

There are a lot of good answers here already: I think, in the early days at least, Senator Bernie Sanders, Representative Keith Ellison, and Senator Chuck Schumer have all sort of stood out in this regard. But, again, let me throw two out there that arent Democrats at all.

The first Id throw out there is Senator John McCain. Right now, there is not a whole lot going on in terms of meaningful Republican opposition to Trump. For the most part, Trumps win has caused most of his right-leaning critics to either openly change their tune (Cruz, Rubio) or, at best, fade muttering into the background (Romney, the Bushes, etc). One of the very few voices with any great standing in the party or ability to actually be problematic for Trump who has NOT followed that pattern has been McCain.

Hes been holding his tongue largely, but already hes been sending out a lot of either passive aggressive sniping or actual congressional pushback at Trump. McCain is a lifer and well regarded within the party (particularly to the people who matter most: donors, mediaand other Republican politicians), and he also just got elected to a six-year term, likely his last, so he really doesnt have much to lose or much incentive to put up with Trumps bullshit. Already on things like torture and Russia, hes been a strong and swift voice of opposition, and I would expect that to continue and that opposition to only deepen as time goes by. So, I would keep a close eye on McCain.

The second name I would throw out there is Evan McMullin. He has already been a thorn in Trumps side, and he has consistently served as something like the good angel on Republican shoulders - and currently, a voice of sanity and refuge for folks, like me, who identify as Republican but think Trump is the current biggest threat going to traditional conservatism. He has articulated a clear, consistent and conservative opposition to the Trump administration, and it doesnt appear like hes going away any time soon.

So, all of those guys I just named are Republican. Thats not just because Im a Republican, but because, I believe, that concrete and impactful opposition to Trump is not going to originate necessarily on the left. So long as its simply a partisan divide, Trump winsDemocrats will be able to channel a lot of anger and raise a chorus of voices, but at the end of the day, theyre going to be at the mercy of the actions of others (specifically, the judicial branch and congressional Republicans). Real checks and balances are only going to come when at least some meaningful opposition to Trump emerges on the right and in the center-right. So long as Republicans stay in lineand so long as they fear Trump more than they fear their votersTrump is going to largely have the ability to enact his agenda. Where fissures begin to develop is where true opposition might begin to take hold, and in my mind its those four, far more than any Democrat, that our republic hinges on now.

Who is the de facto leader of the opposition for the Trump Administration in 2017? originally appeared on Quorathe place to gain and share knowledge, empowering people to learn from others and better understand the world. You can follow Quora on Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. More questions:

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Quora: Look to Republicans to Lead the Trump Opposition - Newsweek