GOP hopes for Senate health bill all but gone
WASHINGTON — The lastgasp Republican drive to tear down President Barack Obama’s health care law essentially died Monday as Maine Sen. Susan Collins joined a small but decisive cluster of GOP senators in opposing the push.
The Maine moderate said in a statement that the legislation would make “devastating” cuts in the Medicaid program for poor and disabled people, drive up premiums for millions and weaken protections Obama’s law gives individuals with preexisting medical conditions. She said the legislation is “deeply flawed,” despite eleventh-hour changes its sponsors have made in search of support.
The only way Republicans could resuscitate their push would be to change opposing senators’ minds, which they’ve tried unsuccessfully to do for months. Collins told reporters that she made her decision despite a phone call from President Donald Trump, who’s been futilely trying to press unhappy GOP senators to back the measure.
“They’re still working it and a lot of conversations are going on,” said No. 3 Senate GOP leader John Thune of South Dakota. But he conceded a revival would be “a heavy lift,” and the prospects were “bleak.”
The collapse marks a replay of the embarrassing loss Trump and party leaders suffered in July, when the Senate rejected three attempts to pass legislation erasing Obama’s 2010 statute.
The GOP has made promises to scrap the law a high-profile vow for years, and its failure to deliver despite controlling the White House and Congress has infuriated conservatives whose votes Republican candidates need.
Republicans have pinned their hopes on a measure by GOP Sens. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina. The measure would end Obama’s Medicaid expansion and subsidies for consumers and ship the money — $1.2 trillion through 2026 — to states to use on health services with few constraints.
Overnight, the sponsors added billions of extra dollars for states and language easing Obama’s coverage requirements in an effort to win over wavering GOP senators.
But by Monday afternoon, Paul and GOP Sen. John McCain of Arizona remained against the measure. Republican Maine Sen. Susan Collins was a certain opponent, Alaska GOP Sen. Lisa Murkowski was undecided and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz was opposed but senior aides said he was looking for changes so he could vote yes.
With their narrow 52-48 majority and solid Democratic opposition, three GOP “no” votes would doom the bill.
The Senate must vote this week for Republicans to have any chance of prevailing with their narrow margin. Next Sunday, protections expire against a Democratic filibuster, bill-killing delays that Republicans lack the votes to overcome.
On Monday, Trump took on McCain, who’d returned to the Senate after a brain cancer diagnosis in July to cast the key vote that wrecked this summer’s GOP effort. Trump called that “a tremendous slap in the face of the Republican party” in a call to the “Rick & Bubba Show,” an Alabamabased talk radio program.
Cassidy and Graham defended their bill before the Finance committee.
“I don’t need a lecture from anybody about health care,” Graham told the panel’s Democrats, whose party uniformly opposes the measure. Referring to Obama’s 2010 overhaul, he added, “What you have created isn’t working.”
Also appearing was Sen. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, who learned earlier this year that she has kidney cancer. She said colleagues and others have helped her battle the disease with compassion, saying, “Sadly, this is not in this bill.”
Republicans provided documents stating that 34 states would get more health money under the bill than under Obama’s law. Those included Alaska, Arizona, Kentucky, Maine and Texas — home to senators whose votes leaders were laboring to win.
Democrats said the GOP numbers were deceptive because they omitted the impact of cuts Republicans would impose on Medicaid, the health insurance program for the poor and disabled.
Senior aides said Cruz still wanted additional steps to let insurers sell low-premium policies with sparse coverage, which Obama’s statute forbids.
Graham and Cassidy’s revamped proposal gives states more freedom to charge higher premiums for older and seriously ill people and to sell skimpy, lower-cost policies. The initial version, required federal approval for such action. It would also let states unilaterally raise limits Obama’s law has placed on consumers’ out-of-pocket costs.