US hospitals oppose Trump-backed health bill

The American Hospital Association (AHA) said current provisions for "our most vulnerable" would be thrown into doubt.

President Donald Trump met lawmakers on Wednesday to rally them behind the bill, after a stormy 24 hours.

Moderate Republicans are concerned people will be stripped of cover, while conservatives sense federal overreach.

The bill, called the American Health Care Act, would replace the signature law of President Barack Obama, so-called Obamacare.

It would:

• limit future federal funding for Medicaid, which covers low-income people
• abolish the requirement that everyone should be insured
• replace subsidies with tax credits

Overall, the plan is expected to cover fewer people than those who gained insurance under the Obama administration's Affordable Care Act, but we will not know the exact numbers - or the cost - for about another week.

It is now being considered by two congressional committees ahead of its passage through the House and Senate.

• What are the Republicans proposing?
• Is Obamacare more popular than ever?
• A bumpy 24 hours for Trump health bill

What did the hospitals and doctors say about it?

The president of the AHA, which represents about 5,000 hospitals and health networks, said in a letter to Congress that the ability to assess the bill was "severely hampered" by the lack of a proper estimate by the Congressional Budget Office.

But the plans for Medicaid "will have the effect of making significant reductions in a programme that provides services to our most vulnerable populations", Rick Pollack wrote.

In a separate letter, a large doctors' group, the American Medical Association, also urged Congress to reconsider reducing insurance for the poor.

The AARP, a lobbying group for older Americans, has opposed the plan too, saying funding for the Medicare insurance programme for the elderly could be cut.

Who is speaking up for the bill?

House Speaker Paul Ryan praised the bill as "a conservative wish list" and "monumental, exciting conservative reform."

"This is what we've been dreaming about doing," he told reporters.

President Trump campaigned on repealing Obamacare, which he says has suffered from rising premiums and a lack of choice.

White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said the president was "in full sell mode".

As well as convincing Americans, he has to first persuade sceptics in his own party.

Republicans control the White House and both chambers of Congress, but it is unclear if they will get enough votes to get the bill through.

The bill will be "dead on arrival" at the doors of the Senate, said Kentucky senator Rand Paul.

Sean Spicer muddles answer when pressed on Trump and Russia investigation

The White House has sown further confusion about Donald Trump’s accusations of wiretapping against his predecessor, Barack Obama.

At a briefing on Wednesday, press secretary Sean Spicer initially said “we need to find out” if the president is the subject of an investigation, then subsequently sought to clarify that there is “no reason” to believe he is.

Reports emerged on the Heat Street website in November, and the BBC in January, that secret court orders were issued as part of a justice department inquiry into Russian efforts to intervene in the election on Trump’s behalf.

Asked directly if the president is the target of a counterintelligence investigation, Spicer replied: “I think that’s what we need to find out. There was considerable concern last cycle when a reporter was the target of one. But part of the reason we have asked the House and Senate to look into this is because of that.”

The reporter that Spicer referred to is presumably Fox News’s James Rosen, who was investigated by the justice department in 2013 with court order authorisation. Rosen’s emails were scanned but he has said he was not wiretapped.

Trump’s administration has been dogged by reports of contacts between his associates and Moscow. His national security adviser, Michael Flynn, was forced to resign after giving a misleading account of his conversations with the Russian ambassador to the US.

Spicer insisted the suspicions are baseless. “It was interesting if you look at last week all of a sudden these stories that keep coming out about the president and his links to Russia,” he said. “It has continued to be the same old, same old, played over and over again. The president has made clear he has no interests in Russia and yet a lot of these stories that come out with respect to that are frankly fake.”

But a journalist at the briefing refused to let him pursue this tangent, returning to the initial question: “He doesn’t know whether he is the target of a programme?”

Spicer replied: “I think that’s one of the issues that we have asked the House and Senate to look into.”

Once more the press secretary pivoted to a denial of any connections between Trump and Russia. “All of the people that have been briefed on this situation have come to the same conclusion,” he said. “It’s a recycled story over and over and over again.”

The journalist tried again: “Are you saying that there’s a possibility he is the target of a counterintelligence probe involving Russia, because you just connected those two?”

Spicer said: “I don’t – no, no, I think what I’m saying is there is a difference between that narrative and then the narrative that has been perpetuated over and over again. The concern the president has, and why he’s asked the Senate and House intelligence committees to look into this, is to get to the bottom of what may or may not have occurred during the 2016 election.”

The question and answer session moved on to different subjects, including an erroneous tweet that Trump issued about prisoners released from Guantánamo Bay. But just as the briefing was about to wind up, Spicer appeared to look down at the lectern, possibly at a message.

“I just want to be really clear on one point which is there is no reason that we have to think that the president is the target of any investigation whatsoever,” he said. “There is no reason to believe that he is the target of any investigation. I think that’s a very important point to make.

“The one question dealt with whether or not – the tweet dealt with wiretaps during the thing; the other is an investigation. They are two separate issues and there is no reason to believe there is any type of investigation with respect to the Department of Justice.”

Trump accused Obama of wiretapping during a series of tweets fired off early on Saturday morning. On Sunday, Obama’s director of national intelligence denied that there had been any wiretapping of Trump and indicated there had not been a secret court order, though not conclusively.

Earlier in Wednesday’s briefing, Spicer also condemned the publication of nearly 9,000 pages of CIA files by WikiLeaks, though he declined to confirm their authenticity. “This is the kind of disclosure that undermines our security, our country and our wellbeing,” he said. “This alleged leak should concern every single American.”

Trump praised the anti-secrecy site during last year’s election, declaring “I love WikiLeaks” as it continued to dump emails from Hillary Clinton campaign’s manager. But Spicer said there was a “massive, massive difference” between an individual Gmail account and classified information that threatens national security.

“Anybody who leaks classified information will be held to the highest degree of law,” he added.