they're focused on getting low cost drugs to the market, particularly for democrat there's a -- series of a.c.a.

improvement, strengthening bills that are a pushback on a lot of trump administration changes to the insurance market over the last few years. really key health priorities the democrats have been laying out the last few months. hypoyou wrote about the legislation this -- host: you wrote about then legislation this week. obamacare poison pill pricing bill. why do democratic leaders to decide to wring the measures up in in this way and at this time? what are the concerns of republicans and you referred to a poison pill, what are they concerned about? guest: the republicans oppose the a.c.a. they don't want to keep putting money into this, they don't want to support the a.c.a., this is a deck kid of subpoenaation they've -- opposition they've had to this.

it's little surprise they won't agree with a lot of a.c.a. bills. the official line from democratic leadership is these billed were paired at pay-fors. the drug pricing bill saved the federal government money. the a.c.a. bills cost them money. they have a natural fit. politically, you know, for democrats thises a win, right? they -- republicans don't get free votes on drug pricing bills. they don't get an opportunity to take part of the democratic health agenda, which is drug pricing and then leave the a.c.a. so by marrying these, the idea is essentially, you have to take our whole health care agenda or you can -- you can't take a piece of it. if you were to lower health care costs you have to do it across the board. insurance and particularly for drug pricing. host: democratic leadership held a rally/news conference ahead of the house floor debate. they'll include 27 amendments allow under the rule.

what are some of the key amendments you'll be looking for and also some of the members we should be watching for and what they say on the house floor during debate? guest: for republicans, people like michael burgess and greg walden have led the opposition here. a lot of their amendments are going to be focused on splitting the drug pricing bills off from the a.c.a. bills. there's more than 20 amendments to this bill, a lot of them are somewhat piecemeal, meant to clarify or focus on there. representative rochester has one, i believe it's a little bit about studying a lot of the effects of what the trump administration has done, about what outreach efforts are, and a lot of those are very focused, particularly that one by representative blunt rochester, trying to figure out what the trump administration, how a lot of their effects are rolling back a.c.a. funds. it'll be interesting to see if they go through and how much

support that kind of measure might get. host: president trump has talked a lot and tweeted a lot about drug prices -- pricing. but you tweeted this, the white house officially threatened to veto h.r. 987 the combo a.c.a.-drug pricing package. this could give republicans some cover but won't change much of the politics of it. what are concerns of the trump administration? guest: they share the same concerns that republicans have, they are not going to bolster the affordable care act and its markets. they're not going to put the money back into them that they took out. and they're obviously not going to pull back any of the policies that they laid out, they're obviously not going to support something that pushes back on the way they've affected the insurance markets for the past few years. so they have said look, we support the drug pricing measures, we are supportive of these measures but not the a.c.a. measures. putting them together is something we won't support. it's their message of we don't

want these two issues to be combined in any way. we want to separate them. it's a difficult line to take sometimes. host: any indication there'll be republican members voting in favor of this legislation? since it's a package of bills, any indication that the senate led by republicans would take up any portion of it? guest: the a.c.a. bill that was hit the floor this year have seen very paltry republican support. i believe the measure getting the house involved in the a.c.a. lawsuit, i think maybe got six or seven republicans on it. the most recent a.c.a. bill got about four. these are mainly people who have , you know, in the past supported some of these or not necessarily been behind the trump administration's changes. that's a pretty small number. i think this is going to be a big test to see how many republicans democrats can peel off. a lot of -- drug pricing and health care costs are a big part of the 018 election. they're setting up to be a big

part of the 2020 election. i think a lot of members are doing the calculus and asking themselves, can i go home and face the, obviously what's going to come. the ads, the attacks from my challenger saying i voted against drug pricing bills, voted against bills that my opponent says are going to improve the costs here. so i think this is going to be a big test for republicans to see how well they can keep their house together. host: we've been talking to alex ohoff. ahex, thanks for joining us. the house is done for the night but members return thursday to complete work on a bill that addresses health care and prescription drug costs. earlier today, lawmakers passed a bill that reaffirms the mashpee wampanoag tribal legislation that has trust land

in massachusetts. they started a -- start dead bait on a bill called the equality act which aims to ban discrimination on gender identity and sexual orientation. a final vote on that is expected friday. follow the house live on c-span when members return thursday. also tomorrow, house democrats hold a news conference on the investigation into russia's interference in the 016 election. following that, lawmakers plan to read the entire redacted mueller report, led by house judiciary committee chairierry nadler and vice chair mary fway scanlon. overage starts at 10:00 a.m. kick bidenle is live to off his nomination for president. we've covered the campaigns of 0 democratic candidates who have

entered the race so far, from announcement speeches to campaign events. watch any time at our website, c-span.org/campaign2020. host: monday, more campaign coverage as president trump holds a rally in pennsylvania. that's live starting at 7:00 p.m. eastern on c span 2 or as soon as the senate gavels out or the night monday. >> this week our online video library marks a milestone. a quarter million hours of content. all c-span programs since 1987 are available in our online library and you can view them ll, for free, at c-span.org. >> senate judiciary committee chair lindsay graham held a news conference today on border security. he also unveiled legislation to ades