Freedom Caucus won’t block Obamacare repeal plan

The House Free­dom Caucus de­cided Wed­nes­day af­ter­noon not to take an of­fi­cial po­s­i­tion on the House budget, free­ing up their mem­bers to vote however they want on a res­ol­u­tion cru­cial to re­peal­ing Obama­care, ac­cord­ing to a source fa­mil­i­ar with their de­lib­er­a­tions.

The budget is largely a pro­ced­ur­al meas­ure, but sets up a frame­work to re­peal the health-care law while avoid­ing a Sen­ate fili­buster. Con­ser­vat­ives in the Free­dom Caucus have been press­ing lead­er­ship to de­tail how they plan to re­place the law be­fore agree­ing to go ahead with the budget vote.

House GOP lead­ers have been whip­ping the budget this week, but without most of the Free­dom Caucus, they likely would not have the votes ne­ces­sary to the pass it. The Free­dom Caucus of­ten holds in­tern­al votes on wheth­er to sup­port bills, and if 80 per­cent of the group votes a cer­tain way, the group must vote as a whole. Al­though some con­ser­vat­ives will still likely vote against the meas­ure, avoid­ing that bind­ing vote means Free­dom Caucus mem­bers who want to sup­port the budget can do so without re­per­cus­sion.