House Democrat leadership ignored a widely supported, bipartisan telehealth bill to instead advance Rep. Liz Cheney’s (R-WY) narrowly backed telehealth bill to give her a boost ahead of her pivotal primary race, a House Republican aide tells Breitbart News.
House Majority Leader Hoyer announced that the House will consider Cheney’s legislation, H.R. 4040, Advancing Telehealth Beyond COVID-19, next week. The legislation will expand access to telehealth, a Donald Trump reform that benefitted many Americans during the coronavirus lockdowns.
However, Democrat leadership decided to advance this narrowly supported bill in comparison to more widely supported legislation, such as H.R. 6202, the Telehealth Extension Act of 2021.
The legislation was crafted by Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-TX), the chairman of the health subcommittee on the House Ways and Means Committee. Reps. Mike Thompson (D-CA), Vern Buchanan (R-PA), Mike Kelly (R-PA), and David Schweikert (R-AZ) sponsored the legislation.
Notably, H.R. 6202 has 78 cosponsors, receiving strong bipartisan support from Republicans and Democrats.
In contrast, Cheney’s legislation only has the support of Reps. Debbie Dingell (D-MI), Anthony Gonzalez (R-OH), and Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ).
Despite the widely supported bipartisan bill having 26 times more support than Cheney’s legislation, the Never Trump Republican’s bill will receive a floor vote.
One House Republican aide believes that Cheney’s bill will receive a floor vote to give her a boost during her embattled primary against Harriet Hageman.
“It seems Democrat leadership’s goal with this legislation is to give Rep. Cheney an edge in her primary,” a House Republican aide familiar with the situation told Breitbart News. “That’s a shame because Republicans have been working across the aisle on a bipartisan bill to improve access to telehealth for over a year.”
Indeed, Cheney may need all the help she can get, as a recent WPA Intelligence, Club for Growth poll released in July found that Hageman leads Cheney by 28 points ahead of the August 16 primary. The poll also suggested that even though she has solicited Democrat votes, they will not give her the edge during the primary. Other reports found that Cheney has received substantial donations from Democrat donors.
Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne Jr. urged Democrats on Thursday to save Cheney.
The planned vote on Cheney’s legislation also follows as Cheney has served as the vice chair of the January 6 committee, which is strongly backed by Democrat leadership.
During the January 6 Committee’s primetime hearing Thursday night, Cheney lauded “confessions” to the committee, even as critics called it a “show trial.”
Breitbart News’s Senior Editor-at-Large, Joel Pollak, noted that the primetime hearing yielded little new evidence.
Cheney praised former Trump administration aides who came forward to denounce Trump and said that the committee could look forward to more “confessions.”
The Never Trump Republican said, “Efforts to litigate and overcome immunity and executive privilege claims have been successful, and those continue. Doors have opened, new subpoenas have been issued, and the dam has begun to break.”
Sean Moran is a congressional reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter @SeanMoran3.
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