You've already met Rep. Patrick McHenry, the North Carolina Republican whose family has a lot of bad health history, and who has decided that Republicans really have to keep the protections for people with pre-existing conditions that are part of Obamacare. Because he's a Republican: if it effects him or his direct family personally, then it matters. But it seems that he's not the only one that is having some issues with the latest talk between the Freedom Caucus maniacs and the Trump regime on Zombie Trumpcare, which would get rid of essential health benefits and those protections for pre-existing conditions. Some Republicans are coming around to the idea that all of these really extreme ideas are not popular, and a handful are speaking up.
It’s not just the pre-existing condition protections that GOP lawmakers are defending.
Many Republicans from states that accepted ObamaCare’s expansion of Medicaid are supporting keeping it. [...]
But now some Republicans are speaking up in favor of those requirements, including the chairman of the powerful Appropriations Committee, Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen (R-N.J.).
“In addition to the loss of Medicaid coverage for so many people in my Medicaid-dependent state, the denial of essential health benefits in the individual market raise serious coverage and cost issues,” Frelinghuysen wrote in a statement last month announcing he would oppose the House GOP repeal bill.
These Republicans are being pretty viciously attacked by groups like Heritage Action, whose director says they as part of the “Tuesday Group” they belong to “clearly wants to keep ObamaCare in place.” Freedom Caucus member Rep. Mark Meadows of North Carolina chimes in with his position that anything less than full repeal is not enough.
Don’t expect this Republican civil war to abate in the coming weeks—not with members back home in their districts, where they are getting an earful from their constituents.