Congress approves stopgap
spending bill to avert shutdown, 4/28/17, FoxNews
Congress on Friday approved a one-week,
stopgap spending bill to avert a government shutdown this weekend, giving
lawmakers more time to negotiate a broader budget deal – as lawmakers also
pushed off talks on a new health care package.
The spending measure passed the Senate
by voice vote after clearing the House on a bipartisan 382-30 vote. It now goes
to President Trump's desk.
Lawmakers had been facing a midnight
deadline to pass a new funding bill. They will now continue to work on a
bigger, $1 trillion budget package, under a new deadline of next Friday.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell,
R-Ky., said earlier that bargainers were "very close" to an
agreement. But underscoring lingering battles over environmental and financial
regulations, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., continued to object
to what he called "poison pill riders."
But the bipartisan budget talks had progressed
more smoothly after the White House dropped a threat to withhold payments that
help lower-income Americans pay their medical bills and President Trump
abandoned a demand for money for a border wall with Mexico.
On the separate health care bill, House
Republican leaders are still scrounging for votes from their own rank-and-file. There is no vote planned for Friday,
meaning Trump will finish his first 100 days without a major legislative
accomplishment.
House Rules Committee Chairman Pete
Sessions, R-Texas, said it’s possible they could entertain a health care bill
next week. “A definite maybe,” he said.
Republicans have revised an earlier
version to let states escape a requirement under President Barack Obama's 2010
law that insurers charge healthy and seriously ill customers the same rates.
They could also be exempted from Obama's mandate that insurers cover a list of
services like hospitalization and substance abuse treatment and from its
prohibition against charging older customers more than triple their rates for
younger ones.
The overall legislation would cut the
Medicaid program for low-income people, eliminate Obama's fines for people who
don't buy insurance and provide generally lower subsidies.
More than a dozen Republicans, mostly moderates,
said they were opposing the legislation. Many others remained publicly
uncommitted, putting party elders in a tough spot. House Speaker Paul Ryan,
R-Wis., wants to avoid an encore of last month's embarrassment, when he
abruptly canceled a vote because of opposition from moderates and conservatives
alike.
On Wednesday, conservatives in the House
Freedom Caucus announced their support for the revised health
legislation.
Fox News’ Chad
Pergram and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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