WASHINGTON (AP) – A member of the conservative House Freedom Caucus is resigning after the hard-line group helped scuttle the Republican health care overhaul.
Texas Congressman Ted Poe says in a statement Sunday that “saying no is easy, leading is hard but that is what we were elected to do.”
The Houston area Republican was one of the few caucus members who’d declared support for the proposal. Most of the group’s roughly three dozen members opposed it. President Donald Trump and other top Republicans are blaming them for the bill’s collapse.
Poe says “I got the opinion that there’s some members of the Freedom Caucus, they’d vote no against the 10 Commandmentsif it came up for a vote.”
Poe believes the freedom caucus was pushing for too many changes to the health care bill that failed last week, saying “Not a perfect bill, but it’s a start”.
The Freedom Caucus wanted to eliminate the part of the Affordable Care Act that required insurance companies to cover people with pre-existing conditions. Poe says “they let the perfect be the enemy of the good”.
Poe says although he can’t speak for the group, he’s spoken to other members of the group who are “distraught” that the bill didn’t pass and may resign as well.
Copyright 2017, Associated Press (WBAP/KLIF News contributed to parts of the article). All Rights Reserved
