Republican health plan likely dead as key US senator defects
WASHINGTON: The latest bid backed by US President Donald Trump to dismantle his predecessor’s health care law likely unravelled Monday when a crucial third Republican formally came out against the plan.
Senator Susan Collins, who has waffled for weeks on the latest measure that would overhaul Obamacare, joined Republican colleagues John McCain and Rand Paul as fi rm no votes on the legislation.
Republican leaders had hoped to schedule a vote on the bill, which replaces the Affordable Care Act (ACA) with a system of block grants to states, before a Sept 30 deadline that would allow them to pass it with a simple majority.
“This is simply not the way that we should be approaching an important and complex issue that must be handled thoughtfully and fairly for all Americans,” Senator Susan Collins said in a statement announcing her opposition.
The bill would make sweeping changes and cuts to Medicaid, with experts projecting a staggering US$ 1 trillion plus in cuts between 2020 and 2036 to the federal health programme for the poor and the disabled which has been expanded under Obamacare.
“This would have a devastating impact to a programme that has been on the books for 50 years and provides health care to our most vulnerable citizens,” Collins said.
Compounding the problem for the bill, the non- partisan Congressional Budget Office released a preliminary study of the new legislation, and projected that while it would reduce the budget deficit by some US$ 133 billion, it would ‘result in millions fewer people with comprehensive health insurance that covers highcost medical events’.
Republicans hold 52 seats in the 100-member Senate and can afford just two defectors.
Collins’s opposition, along with McCain and Paul, essentially sinks the Republican effort, which had gained steam in the two weeks since senators Lindsey Graham and Bill Cassidy unveiled their new plan.
It is sure to be yet another embarrassing blow to the Trump White House, which has yet to secure a major legislative victory more than eight months into his turbulent presidency.
Paul criticised as ‘ unseemly’ Graham’s and Cassidy’s latest effort to tweak their legislation to sweeten the deal for states like Alaska, Arizona and Maine in order to lure skeptical senators from those states. — AFP