The Republicans’ much embattled Affordable Care Act repeal legislation — the American Health Care Act — was passed by the House Budget Committee, on which Santa Barbara Congressmember Salud Carbajal sits, by a 19-17 vote. Carbajal, a first-term Democrat now entering his eighth week in office, voted against the bill, explaining it “shafted the middle class.” All Democrats on the committee voted against the bill. They were joined in their "no" votes by three Republicans who belong to the arch-conservative Freedom Caucus, who object the bill doesn’t go far enough to contain entitlement creep among Medicaid recipients. “It was closer than I expected,” Carbajal said.
Carbajal voted in favor of seven Democratic-sponsored motions to amend the bill, all of which failed along party-line votes. Only one Democratic amendment elicited any Republican support — but just one Republican vote. That amendment would strike from the bill provisions to defund Planned Parenthood for a year.
Several committee Democrats — Carbajal included — endorsed a Republican amendment that would make sure the tax credits went to middle-income rather than wealthier individuals in the Republican Obamacare alternative. Under the Republican proposal, tax credits would be made available to those earning up to $115,000 a year. Critics of the bill have made much of the Congressional Budget Office report showing that the Republican bill’s subsidies — considerably less generous than those offered under Obamacare — strongly favor younger and higher income earners at the expense of older and low- to middle-income earners. That amendment was offered by Republican Tom McClintock, now of Roseville, who used to represent Ventura County in the California Legislature before moving north.