Rep. Bob Good leaves a House Republican Conference meeting in October. Photo: Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images
The House Freedom Caucus' newly elected 2024 chair, Rep. Bob Good, will bring some health care expertise to what's shaping up to be a fraught election year session.
Why it matters: The HFC has pushed GOP leadership to embrace conservative policies despite Republicans' narrow majority, including anti-abortion riders on appropriations bills and federal spending cuts that would hit health agencies.
- Past chair Jim Jordan also helped lead attempts to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act in 2017.
Zoom in: Though Good was only elected to Congress in 2020, he's worked on health care bills as chair of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions subcommittee on the House Education and Workforce Committee.
- Several of his bills dealt with wonky topics and reached the floor.
- One bipartisan bill that cleared the committee in July was included in the House transparency package that passed the chamber on Monday.
- It would require insurers to provide consumers with certain information and make public in-network negotiated rates, drug prices and payments for out-of-network coverage.
- Good was also a co-sponsor of a measure in the package that requires PBMs to provide employer health plans with data on prescription drug spending.
- He was a lead on the Self-Insurance Protection Act which passed the House in June. That bill would ensure that businesses have access to buying stop-loss coverage if they would like to self-insure their plans.
- Good is also a member of the House Budget Committee which typically releases a balanced budget that cuts spending in some areas of health care programs.
What he's saying: Asked about forthcoming health agenda items, Good told Axios, "I don't have a specific comment on health care that applies to Freedom Caucus, so no comment on that right now."
- He also wouldn't comment on the merits of trying again to repeal the ACA.
- But Good previously answered "yes" when asked if he was interested in repealing and replacing the ACA.
- He's also been vocal about supporting a total abortion ban in the past, telling Axios' Andrew Solender last year that, "we need to do what our base sent us here to do and what is the right thing to do, which is to ban all abortion."
- And he told reporters in July that, "We should not fear a government shutdown," when the HFC gave a press conference on their demands for appropriations spending.
State of play: Outside of health care, Good is known as one of the eight Republicans who voted to oust former Speaker Kevin McCarthy.
- He's also thrown his support behind Ron DeSantis' presidential campaign.
- And Axios' Juliegrace Brufke reported earlier this week that there was at least one HFC member who opposed Good's election to be chair, questioning if he will impair the goal of "preserving our power to move policy in the right direction."
