WASHINGTON – President Trump and Speaker Paul Ryan opened a crack in the wall of conservative Republican opposition to their health care bill Wednesday, winning over Congressman Lou Barletta of Pennsylvania.

Barletta said Trump and Ryan turned him around from no to yes by promising to support his bill requiring the Department of Health and Human Services to verify the Social Security numbers of Medicaid recipients to avoid assistance going to illegal immigrants.

“Because my concerns were met,” Barletta said in a statement, “I will vote for the bill — with the understanding my bill will receive full consideration on the House floor next month.”

Trump and Ryan have been meeting one-on-one and in groups with reluctant Republicans, offering promises and predicting consequences in a full-court press to get the 216 votes needed to pass the health care bill.

The House vote is expected Thursday, though it may be delayed to Friday or the weekend if Republican leaders sense they do not have sufficient votes. Or they could also put the bill on ice for consideration later this spring.

“Honestly, a loss is not acceptable, folks,” Trump told lawmakers Wednesday, warning that failure to repeal Obamacare could cost the party its majorities in the House and Senate in the mid-term elections next year.

Ryan has the bill on a fast-track in the House so it needs only a majority vote to send it to the Senate, where Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has promised to promptly schedule a vote. Trump has promised to sign it in a New York minute.

Conservative Republican lawmakers object to the bill on the ground it doesn’t go far enough in repealing Obamacare by continuing subsidies to lower-income Americans to help them buy health insurance. Ryan has tried to overcome their concerns by adding Medicaid restrictions such as work requirements for able-bodied adult recipients.

Several moderate Republicans have also said they are leaning toward opposing the bill based on the congressional budget office’s forecast that insurance premiums would go up by more than 20 percent the first two years of the law and millions of low-income and older Americans would be without health insurance.

Barletta, an immigration hard-liner, had said earlier he opposed the bill because it did not contain verification safeguards to prevent undocumented residents from receiving Medicaid assistance. He said subsidies should not go to anyone who “has no right to those federal dollars.”

A Senate report has estimated $750 million in subsidies under the current law went to recipients who did not have to show proof of U.S. citizenship last year.

Barletta said Trump and Ryan agreed with him that this practice served to encourage illegal immigration. He said they committed to his bill requiring proof of citizenship with valid Social Security accounts.

Contact Kery Murakami at kmurakami@cnhi.com.