{"id":8897,"date":"2025-05-06T13:33:08","date_gmt":"2025-05-06T13:33:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/key-republican-gop-hard-pressed-to-wrap-megabill-by-memorial-day\/"},"modified":"2025-05-06T13:33:08","modified_gmt":"2025-05-06T13:33:08","slug":"key-republican-gop-hard-pressed-to-wrap-megabill-by-memorial-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/key-republican-gop-hard-pressed-to-wrap-megabill-by-memorial-day\/","title":{"rendered":"Key Republican: GOP \u2018hard pressed\u2019 to wrap megabill by Memorial Day"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Republicans will be \u201chard pressed\u201d to finish their megabill by Memorial Day, a key Republican said Tuesday at a hospital industry conference.<\/p>\n

This acknowledgment from Rep. Buddy Carter<\/a> of Georgia, the top Republican on the House Energy and Commerce health subcommittee, is a significant concession that Republicans face a steep hill to climb to meet Speaker Mike Johnson<\/a>\u2019s deadline for getting the bill through the House by the end of May.<\/p>\n

Republicans are still sorting through major divisions on how deeply to make cuts to Medicaid and issues related to state and local tax deductions. At stake is extending President Donald Trump\u2019s tax cuts and enacting his broader agenda on tax, energy and border policy.<\/p>\n

Johnson also suggested Monday the timeline could change as lawmakers work to resolve major policy differences, but that if it slips past Memorial Day it would be wrapped \u201cshortly thereafter.\u201d<\/p>\n

Still, Carter said Tuesday at the American Hospital Association\u2019s conference in Washington, “I\u2019m very confident, first of all, we can get this done \u2026 [and] that we\u2019re going to get it done in a timely fashion. Certainly we\u2019re going to get it done before July 4.\u201d<\/p>\n

Carter, a former pharmacist, also revealed that the text of bipartisan legislation targeting the business practices of pharmacy benefit managers, or PBMs, to lower drug prices is currently on tap for inclusion in the Energy and Commerce Committee’s portion of the Trump agenda bill. Carter had previously said that commercial market overhauls may not qualify for the budget reconciliation process given the Senate\u2019s stringent rules, but changes impacting government programs like Medicaid could qualify. On Tuesday, he said Republicans are planning to include some of those provisions in the package.\u00a0 <\/b><\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we\u2019re going to do is eliminate spread pricing in Medicaid,\u201d Carter said, referring to the policy that would prohibit PBMs from charging Medicaid more for a prescription drug than is paid to a pharmacy that dispenses the medication.<\/p>\n

But Republicans have struggled to reach agreement over how to obtain enough savings to reach the House Energy and Commerce Committee\u2019s target of $880 billion in spending cuts for the megabill. Democrats and some Republicans have warned that major cuts to Medicaid could threaten health care access for millions of Americans.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we’re trying to do is to see where we can cut waste, fraud and abuse of Medicaid, where we can stabilize that program and make it sustainable for the most vulnerable in our population, those who it was intended for in the first place,\u201d Carter said.<\/p>\n

Carter also hinted, as he has previously<\/a>, that he might be interested in running against Sen. Jon Ossoff<\/a> (D-Ga.) in the 2026 Georgia Senate race.<\/p>\n

\u201cRight now, I’m concentrating on making sure we get through this reconciliation process as chair of the health subcommittee and representing people with the first congressional district, but I want to do what’s best for our state,\u201d Carter said. \u201cAnd I believe that God has a plan, and he’ll make sure that that plan is followed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ben Leonard contributed to this report.<\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Republicans will be \u201chard pressed\u201d to finish their megabill by Memorial Day, a key Republican said Tuesday at a hospital industry conference. This acknowledgment from Rep. Buddy Carter of Georgia, the top Republican on the House Energy and Commerce health subcommittee, is a significant concession that Republicans face a steep hill to climb to meet […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8897","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-congress"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8897","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8897"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8897\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8897"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8897"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8897"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}