GOD facing defeat on latest health bill
5 Senate Republicans may vote against repeal of ACA.
A last-ditch WASHINGTON — Republican effort aimed at repealing the 2010 health care law as Obamacare may be in its death throes, but its death will, apparently, be a dramatic one. A Senate hearing on a bill
introduced by Sens. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Bill Cassidy of Louisiana Monday provoked protests, a delay while wheelchair-bound protesters were dragged out of the hearing room, and plenty of sparring, but the fact remains: At least two Republican senators have committed to voting against the plan, and at least three are leaning no.
Sen. Rob Portman’s efforts to inject more money to fight the opioid epidemic appear to have been to no avail, based on the last draft of the bill, which was released this morning. But Portman, R-Ohio, has not announced his final decision on the bill, though he praised its flexibility in a conference call with reporters last week.
But at a tense hearing of the Senate Finance Committee, Graham suggested that the Senate had little choice but to act.
“If somebody doesn’t fix Obamacare soon, a majority of the counties in the country are going to be down to one provider,” he said, adding that Medicare and Medicaid are also becoming rapidly unsustainable, and on track to cost more than the military by 2027 and on track to take up all taxpayer dollars by 2042.
His bill would largely retain the taxes that paid for the 2010 health care law known as Obamacare but would end within three years the Medicaid expansion that states such as Ohio accepted. Instead, the federal government would give states per-capita grants, which might not be enough to pay for the previously expanded programs.
The bill would also repeal the 2010 law’s requirement that individuals buy federally subsidized insurance policies set up through the states and the federal government.
Republicans have until Sept. 30 to pass legislation under a budget procedure that allows the Senate to pass bills with a 51-vote majority, rather than the 60 vote threshold that many Senate bills require. The Senate has 52 Republicans and 48 Democrats.
Ohio Gov. John Kasich has earlier pushed for the Senate to pursue a bipartisan effort by Democrat Patty Murray of Washington and Republican Lamar Alexander of Tennessee to shore up the insurance markets. But their efforts broke down after Senate GOP leadership indicated they would push the Graham-Cassidy bill last week, and the House GOP leadership has been cool about the idea of taking up any solution hammered out by Murray and Alexander.
Former Sen. Rick Santorum, also testifying in support of the bill, said much of the opposition to it has been “hysteria.”
But former Pennsylvania Insurance Commissioner Teresa Miller said the Graham-Cassidy plan was poorly designed and “would create chaos in our health care system with frightening implications” by stripping funding that states have come to rely upon.
“There are no winners in this bill, but many who will lose, and many who will be at grave risk,” she said.
The hearing looked, for a moment as if it would not happen. Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, put the hearing into recess after about a dozen protesters, many in wheelchairs, began chanting “No cuts for Medicaid, save our liberty.”
“If you want a hearing you’d better shut up,” Hatch said, before gaveling the hearing into recess. Capitol police dragged protester after protester out of the hearing room, occasionally grunting from the effort of physically lifting some protesters.
The halls outside were no less chaotic. When Graham walked down the hall to go into the hearing, many chanted “Shame! Shame! Shame!” at the veteran senator.
Kasich and Democrats have insisted that the process has been far too rushed, with only one hearing to examine the bill’s provisions.
“Nobody has got to buy a lemon just because it’s the last car on the lot,” said Sen. Ron Wyden, the ranking Democrat on the committee.
“The fact that it’s the last repeal bill standing doesn’t make it okay. It’s going to be a nightmare for tens of millions of Americans and makes a mockery of the president’s promise of better insurance for everyone at a lower cost.”