Second GOP health-care replacement plan killed
Ohio Senator Portman says he won’t support a repeal-only GOP bill.
After more than 60 House votes during the Obama presidency, one Senate vote in 2015, a 2013 government shutdown and two GOP presidential campaigns premised on the promise of repealing the 2010 health care law, Obamacare lives on, with no apparent end in sight.
After GOP support collapsed for the latest version of the Senate Republican plan Monday night, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said Tuesday he would schedule a floor vote on scrapping the 2010 health care law without trying to pass a revised version.
But that strategy, too, seems destined for failure.
“I would not support just having a repeal vote if that’s all he’s going to offer,” said Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, referring to McConnell’s plan.
“We need to have a replacement as well.”
With at least three other Republican senators making similar statements — Susan Collins, Shelley Moore Capito and Lisa Murkowski — the votes don’t appear to be there for a straight repeal without a replacement.
So the question now becomes: what next?
House Republicans unveiled a 2018 budget plan Tuesday that would pave the way for ambitious tax reform legislation but only alongside — a package of politically sensitive spending cuts that threaten to derail the tax rewrite before it begins.
GOP infighting over spending, health care and other matters continues to cast doubt on whether the budget blueprint can survive a House vote. Failing to pass a budget could complicate leaders’ plans to move on to their next governing priority as hopes of a healthcare overhaul appeared to collapse late Monday in the Senate.
The House Budget Committee blueprint, which is set for a Thursday committee vote, sets out special procedures that could ultimately allow Republicans to pass legislation over the objections of Senate Democrats who can normally block bills they oppose. GOP leaders in the House, as well as top Trump administration officials, hope to use those procedures — known as reconciliation — to pass tax reform later this year.
The instructions in the draft budget, however, go well beyond tax policy and set the stage for a potential $203 billion rollback of financial industry regulations, federal employee benefits, welfare spending and more. Those are policy areas where Republicans have, in many cases, already passed legislation in the House but have seen Democrats block action in the Senate.
House Budget Committee Chairman Diane Black, R-Tenn., said the spending proposal is “not just a vision for our country, but a plan for action.”
“In past years, our proposals had little chance of becoming a reality because we faced a Democratic White House,” she said in a statement Tuesday. “But now with a Republican Congress and a Republican administration, now is the time to put forward a governing document with real solutions to address our biggest challenges.”
Like the spending blueprint released this year by President Trump, the House plan envisions major cuts to federal spending over the coming decade, bringing the budget into balance by relying on accelerated economic growth to boost revenue. Under the House plan, defense spending would steadily increase over 10 years while nondefense discretionary spending would decline to $424 billion — 23 percent below the $554 billion the federal government is spending in that category this year.
Unlike Trump’s budget, the House proposal cuts into Medicare and Social Security — entitlement programs that the president has pledged to preserve. The House plan also makes a less-rosy economic growth assumption of 2.6 percent versus the 3 percent eyed by the Trump administration. Both, however, exceed the 1.9 percent figure eyed by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office in its most recent economic estimates.
The House blueprint won a strong endorsement from White House Budget Director Mick Mulvaney, who served on the House Budget Committee before joining the Trump administration.
“It is a bold effort that follows the leadership of President Trump in Making America Great Again,” he said in a statement. “Critically, this budget lays a pathway for Congress to pass, and President Trump to sign progrowth tax reform into law.”
But under congressional budget rules, a tax bill drafted to comply with the House budget proposal would have to include much more than tax provisions.
“We can move forward with an optimistic vision for the future, and this budget is the first step in that process,” Black said. “...The time for talking is over, now is the time for action.”