Tag Archives: U.S. House of Representatives

White House expects vote on healthcare bill this week

FILE PHOTO: An emergency sign points to the entrance to Scripps Memorial Hospital in La Jolla, California, U.S.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Top White House officials said on Monday they expect the U.S. House of Representatives will vote this week to pass the Republicans’ latest plan to reform the nation’s healthcare system, even as the party’s lawmakers still appeared divided over the measure.

In interviews on CBS News on Monday, White House chief of staff Reince Priebus and White House economic adviser Gary Cohn expressed optimism the latest push to unwind former Democratic President Barack Obama’s healthcare program would succeed.

“I think it will happen this week,” Priebus said on CBS “This Morning” television program.

In a separate interview, Cohn said he expected the plan to come to the House floor for a full vote. “We’re convinced we’ve got the votes, and we’re going to keep moving on with our agenda,” he said.

U.S. President Donald Trump and fellow Republicans campaigned on a pledge to repeal and replace Obama’s health care law, also known as Obamacare, but have so far failed to unite around a plan.

A reworked proposal failed to secure enough support for a vote last week. A group of hard-line Republican conservatives backed it, but more moderate conservatives remained wary.

Republican Representative Charlie Dent, a moderate from Pennsylvania, said on Monday he still had problems with the latest version of the plan and suspected there were not enough votes to pass it now.

“Too many Americans are going to be without coverage,” Dent told MSNBC.

House Freedom Caucus chairman Jim Jordan, in several television interviews on Monday, said he expected there would be enough House Republican votes to pass the bill this week.

“This bill doesn’t get all the way there but it’s a good step and is … the best we can get out of the House right now,” Jordan told CNN.

(Reporting by Susan Heavey and Doina Chiacu; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Jeffrey Benkoe)

U.S. House panel to take up bill to spur generic drug development

File photo: U.S. Rep. Greg Walden (R-OR) asks questions of the witnesses during a House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing on the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act on Capitol Hill in Washington, October 24, 2013.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A U.S. House of Representatives subcommittee will take up bipartisan legislation next week to foster generic drug development, the committee’s chairman, Representative Greg Walden, said on Thursday.

“President (Donald) Trump made it clear … he wants competition to lower drug prices, and that is precisely what this measure will help accomplish,” Walden, a Republican from Oregon, said at a health subcommittee hearing.

“Specifically the bill will require FDA (the Food and Drug Administration) to prioritize, expedite and review generic applications of drug products that are currently in shortage, or where there are few manufacturers on the market,” Walden said.

Trump this week met pharmaceutical executives and called on them to cut prices. He said the government was paying “astronomical” prices for medicines in its health programs for older, disabled and poor people.

Walden said recently there had been cases of “bad actors” who “jacked up the price of drugs because there was no competition,” but he did not name names. “We want to make sure that does not happen again,” the congressman said.

“For those in the industry who think it’s okay to corner a market, drive up prices and rip off consumers, know that your days are numbered,” Walden said.

He said the bill would also increase transparency around the backlog of generic drug applications at the FDA, saying there was an “unacceptably high” number.

The bill will be sponsored by Representative Gus Bilirakis, a Republican from Florida, and Representative Kurt Schrader, a Democrat from Oregon, Walden said. Republicans have the majority in both chambers of Congress.

(Reporting by Susan Cornwell; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and James Dalgleish)

Most House members sign letter backing Israel at U.N.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – More than 90 percent of the U.S. House of Representatives has signed a letter urging President Barack Obama to use U.S. veto power to block any United Nations resolutions seen as biased against Israel, one of the letter’s lead sponsors said on Friday.

U.S. Representative Nita Lowey said 394 members of the 435-member House signed the letter that was sent to Obama on Thursday.

It was written as the Palestinian Authority renewed its drive to persuade the U.N. Security Council to condemn Israeli settlements in Arab East Jerusalem and the West Bank.

The United States vetoed a similar resolution in the Security Council five years ago.

With U.S. efforts to broker a two-state solution in tatters since 2014, France has been lobbying countries to commit to a conference that would get Israelis and Palestinians back to negotiations to end their conflict.

The congressional letter backed a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but insisted that negotiations between the two sides are the only path to peace, not United Nations action or an international conference.

“The only way you can get there is if the two parties can be brought together and really go over all the issues,” Lowey said in a telephone interview.

Lowey is the top Democrat on the House subcommittee that oversees U.S. diplomacy and foreign aid. Republican Representative Kay Granger, who chairs the subcommittee, also sponsored the letter.

Lowey said she had not yet had a response to the letter, but she hoped administration officials were carefully reading it.

Support for Israel is one of the few issues that has the support of Democrats and Republicans in the U.S. Congress.

(Reporting by Patricia Zengerle; Editing by Fiona Ortiz)

Supreme Court Asked To Rule on “Choose Life” License Plates

The Supreme Court is being asked to weigh in on the constitutionality of states issuing license plates with the ”Choose Life” slogan.

The Alliance Defending Freedom filed an appeal on Friday with the court on behalf of the speaker of the North Carolina House of Representatives, Thom Tills, and the president pro tem of the North Carolina Senate, Phil Berger.  The appeal comes after a three-judge panel with the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled the license places were unconstitutional.

The ADF says “state governments have the right to advance messages consistent with their public policies.”  The Supreme Court, the ADF notes, has already affirmed that right in other cases.

The ACLU of North Carolina brought the initial suit against the plates because there were no pro-abortion license plates offered at the same time.

The “Choose Life” plates cost an extra $25, of which $15 goes to a pregnancy care fellowship that helps with pregnancy care centers in the state.  If the ACLU is successful in removing the plates, thousands of women in North Carolina will be denied pregnancy care coverage because the ACLU is doing nothing to replace the funds that will be lost.

Congressman Tells Believers Not To Wait On Political Messiah

Congressman Trey Gowdy, who is heading the House of Representatives’ select committee for the Benghazi terror attack, told a group of believers at Second Baptist Church Houston that they need to stop waiting for a political messiah and place their hope in the true messiah.

“If you want to change culture, don’t wait on the Supreme Court or anyone else,” said the South Carolina congressman. “The real hope in Christ is expressed through the lives of His followers. Changing the hearts and minds in this country is our job.”

Gowdy said that Christians must to step up and speak the truth in a way that is respectful to other people but unwavering in presenting the Gospel truth.

“You don’t insult people into changing their minds,” said Gowdy.

Gowdy said that it’s important for people to hold their elected officials accountable for more than just the votes they cast or actions they take in their office.  He said leaders need to be held accountable for their actions in their private lives because everything we do is a reflection on the Lord and how He is working in our lives.

Gowdy said that Christians need to educate themselves because the answers to all things are in Scripture.

“Are you educated in the teachings of Christ?” Gowdy said. “The answers to all our political questions are in the Bible… But what good does that do unless you know the Bible?”

House Minority Leader Calls Pro-Lifers “Dumb”

If you believe in the sanctity of life, the House minority leader thinks you’re stupid.

Rep. Nancy Pelosi told a Planned Parenthood group that was giving her an award that anyone who was pro-life was “closed-minded”, “oblivious” and “dumb.”

Pelosi was being given the Margaret Sanger Award for “outstanding contributions to the reproductive health and rights movement.”  Sanger is the woman who founded Planned Parenthood and once said that she had to submit to the dictates of “an ever-increasing, unceasingly spawning class of human beings who should never have been born at all.”

Pelosi said she was accepting the award on behalf of her colleagues who are continuing to fight for those who want to end the lives of their babies via abortion.

The gathering also gave a “Global Citizen Award” to former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg who is very pro-abortion.

House Passes Targeted Stop Gap Spending Bills

After a meeting at the White House that failed to produce a resolution on the government shutdown, the House of Representatives passed a series of bills that would provide funding to parts of the government.

The debate proved heated as Rep. George Miller, D-California, repeatedly said that Republicans were waging “jihad” on Americans by not passing a “clean” continuing resolution to fund the government.

The House then passed bills funding the National Park Service, 252-173 and a second bill to fund the National Institutes of Health, 254-171. House members will consider a bill Thursday to fund the Department of Veterans Affairs and National Guard.

Democrats in the Senate have vowed to vote down any bill sent from the House that would partially fund parts of the government.

Government Seeks To Access Web Users’ Private Data

The US House of Representatives has passed a bill that would allow the government to access your private data on the “suspicion” of a “cyber threat.”

The bill passed the house on Thursday 248-168.  While the bill, the “Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA)” passed the house by a wide margin the US Senate is expected to take up an entirely different internet security bill.  President Obama has threatened to veto CISPA. Continue reading →