Gop Healthcare Bill on the Brink Again

May 19, 2022 Post a Comment

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said Friday that he could not vote for the GOP'southward latest health-care bill because the legislative process was too rushed. (Melina Mara/The Washington Post)

The latest Republican effort to dismantle the Affordable Care Act stood on the brink of failure Friday after Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) announced his opposition to the proposal and Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) said she was leaning confronting it.

The intensifying resistance dealt a potentially decisive blow to the renewed attempt to fulfill a 7-year-one-time GOP promise. McCain joined Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) in formally opposing the plan, leaving party leaders one senator abroad from defeat.

Fri's developments forced Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and President Trump into a difficult corner. They must now make up one's mind whether to go on to pursue a vote that increasingly appears likely to neglect, or short-circuit the endeavor and deal with the backlash after another unsuccessful try.

A fresh GOP failure to undo Obamacare could have a seismic impact on the legislative dynamic in Washington and the emerging contours of the 2022 midterm elections. Trump's relationship with McConnell has grown sour since an before attempt to repeal the law over the summer, and the current push represents a chance to repair that relationship. If it fails, Trump could plow on congressional Republicans more forcefully and be tempted to work with Democrats, whom he has courted on a series of narrower bug.

Many Republicans fearfulness that a defeat could besides depress the GOP base headed into the midterms, potentially reducing turnout next autumn and creating an environs in which GOP incumbents are ripe for principal challenges from aroused conservatives.

Ane overriding obstruction for Republicans, withal, is that their efforts to ringlet dorsum the ACA are securely unpopular among the broader public. A new Washington Mail-ABC News poll released Friday showed that more than half of Americans, 56 percent, prefer the ACA to the latest GOP plan. But 33 percent prefer the bill that Senate Republicans abruptly put on the table this calendar month.

In a lengthy written statement Friday, McCain said he "cannot in good conscience" vote for the beak authored by Sens. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) and Lindsey O. Graham (R-Due south.C.), which GOP leaders accept been aiming to bring to the Senate floor adjacent calendar week. Every bit he has done repeatedly in recent days, he railed against the hurried process leaders take used to move the mensurate ahead.

"I would consider supporting legislation similar to that offered past my friends Senators Graham and Cassidy were information technology the product of extensive hearings, debate and amendment. Simply that has non been the case," McCain said. He blamed a looming Sept. xxx borderline to take reward of a procedural rule allowing Republicans to pass the bill with as few as 50 Senate votes, plus Vice President Pence as a tiebreaker.

Senate Republicans hold a narrow 52-to-48 bulk, and Autonomous senators are united against repealing or gutting President Barack Obama's signature health-care constabulary.

McCain also said he could not vote for a bill without a consummate snapshot of its furnishings from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Role, which said earlier this week that information technology could provide only a partial movie by next week. The office said information technology could not determine the bill'due south touch on insurance premiums or projection the change in coverage levels it would trigger until a later engagement.

"I believe we could practice better working together, Republicans and Democrats, and accept not yet really tried," McCain said. He added that he took "no pleasance" in his announcement. McCain and Graham are close friends.

[Republicans' Obamacare repeal is in real trouble now]

In her home state Friday, Collins too signaled that she is close to becoming a definite no. Like McCain, she voted in July against a different GOP repeal neb that was rejected by the Senate.

"I'm leaning against the bill," she said at an event in Portland. "I'thousand simply trying to practise what I believe is the right matter for the people of Maine."

Collins has said she is particularly worried that giving states wide latitude to change the ACA'due south requirements could prompt insurers to increase rates for consumers with costly medical weather.

"I'chiliad reading the fine print," she said, adding that for those with preexisting conditions, "their premium could be and then high that it would not be affordable."

Paul spokesman Sergio Gor reiterated his boss'southward opposition to Cassidy-Graham on Friday, later Trump threatened Paul and other senators on Twitter.

"Rand Paul, or whoever votes against Hcare Bill, will forever (future political campaigns) exist known as 'the Republican who saved ObamaCare,' " Trump tweeted.

Paul — who objects to the legislation because it does not fully repeal the ACA — responded in a serial of tweets, saying that he "won't exist bribed or bullied" into irresolute his listen.

Graham said Friday that he planned to continue trying to bring the measure to a vote. McConnell's office, which said earlier that he intended to bring the bill to the Senate floor next week, did not answer to an research virtually what he plans to do next.

But some were skeptical that the rebooted effort could continue.

At a town hall in liberal Iowa City, which began an hour after McCain announced his opposition to the neb, Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) told a cheering crowd stacked with ACA supporters that the GOP's repeal push was probably over for the twelvemonth.

"I'll be honest," Ernst said. "It seems unlikely that we'll be voting on this."

Cassidy-Graham would plow funding for the ACA into cake grants for states and sharply cut Medicaid spending over time. 3 independent analysis and an internal 1 from the Trump assistants have all predicted that more 30 states would lose federal funding between 2022 and 2026 nether the measure out.

Broadly speaking, states with depression health-care costs that provide fewer Medicaid benefits and did non aggrandize the programme under the ACA stand up to proceeds under Cassidy-Graham, while others stand to lose. As a result, states such as Texas, Georgia and Mississippi would get more than funding, while California, New York and Maryland would have hits.

While it is difficult to calculate how the Cassidy-Graham neb would affect the number of Americans with wellness insurance, an analysis published Friday by the Brookings Institution and the Academy of Southern California's Schaeffer Center for Health Policy & Economics projected that roughly 15 one thousand thousand Americans would lose coverage over the side by side two years if the bill was enacted.

Powerful organizations representing insurers and physicians accept come out forcefully against the nib this week. Patient advocacy groups accept been mobilizing in strength to try to sway lawmakers who accept all the same to say how they will vote. A coalition of 20 groups is planning to hold a rally Monday at the Capitol, where the featured speakers will include a lung cancer patient, and a mother and her fourteen-twelvemonth-old son who was born with built heart illness.

Senate Republican leaders and Trump administration officials have continued to antechamber for the measure. Pence, who hosted Maine Gov. Paul LePage (R) at his ceremonial office Fri, said the Cassidy-Graham bill "is an idea whose time has come."

"President Trump and I are admittedly adamant to acquit this instance all across the country and to call on members of the Senate — most peculiarly Senator Susan Collins from the nifty state of Maine — to join u.s.a. in giving the people of Maine and the people of America a fresh offset on health-intendance reform," Pence said.

Some other wild card, Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), was undecided late Friday, according to her communications managing director, Karina Petersen. "Correct at present she is even so focused on how the pecker will impact Alaska specifically. She'due south continuing to assemble data and is looking at the details of the bill to determine what'south best for her country," Petersen said.

Alaska officials published a preliminary analysis Thursday showing that from 2022 to 2026, the land would lose nearly a quarter of its federal funding for Medicaid and private insurance, or $1.i billion.

Meanwhile, Graham said on Twitter that his "friendship with [McCain] is not based on how he votes but respect for how he'southward lived his life and the person he is," adding that he was "excited virtually solutions" in the pecker.

"We press on," he concluded.

Senate Democrats praised McCain's surprise announcement and called for Republicans to resume stalled negotiations between Senate Health, Instruction, Labor and Pensions Committee Chairman Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) and Sen. Patty Murray (Wash.), the console'due south ranking Democrat, on legislation to strengthen existing wellness insurance marketplaces.

Murray and Alexander appeared to be nearing an understanding before in the week on a deal to ensure continued payment of federal subsidies to aid reduce out-of-pocket costs and premiums for depression-income people. But Alexander abruptly ended the talks every bit GOP leaders intensified their efforts to win votes for Cassidy-Graham.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who flew to California on Fri to speak at the annual conference of National Nurses United, asked activists to join him in thanking McCain. But Sanders also said that the "struggle over this legislation is not over," urging activists to "do everything y'all can, get the give-and-take out all over this state, to tell them that no Republican should vote for this."

David Weigel in Iowa City and Amber Phillips and Amy Goldstein in Washington contributed to this written report.

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Gop Healthcare Bill on the Brink Again

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