GOP strains for modest ‘skinny’ redo of Obamacare
WASHINGTON — An effort by Speaker Paul Ryan to mend a dispute between House and Senate Republicans over the party’s drive to repeal the Obama health care law is receiving mixed reviews from a group of GOP senators, leaving party leaders’ hopes for pushing an initial measure through the Senate up in the air.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., was hoping to push a modest bill through the Senate peeling back pieces of former President Barack Obama’s health care law. Late on Tuesday, he released the text of his pareddown bill, a legislative maneuver so the Senate can pass a bill that a House-Senate conference committee can use as the base to try to work out a comprehensive “repeal and replace” measure.
Mr. McConnell’s lowest-common-denominator solution known as “skinny repeal” bill would end
an unpopular requirement that individuals get coverage or risk fines, as well as a similar obligation imposed on larger employers. It also suspends a tax on medical devices, denies funding to Planned Parenthood, and allows states to seek waivers from consumer protections in the Affordable Care Act.
It would leave 15 million more Americans without insurance next year, the Congressional Budget Office said.
Several GOP senators said they were willing to vote for it only with a promise that the House would not approve it and send it to President Donald Trump for his signature. Instead, they are demanding House-Senate talks aimed at producing a wider-ranging measure.
Mr. Ryan, R-Wis., sent senators a statement saying that if “moving forward” requires talks with the Senate, the House would be “willing” to do so. Shortly afterward, his words received varied responses from three GOP senators who’d insisted on a clear Ryan commitment.
“Not sufficient,” said Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who returned to the Capitol Tuesday to provide a pivotal vote that allowed the Senate to begin debating the health care bill, a paramount priority for Mr. Trumpand the GOP.
Sen. Lindsey Graham, RS.C., initially said “not yet” when asked if he was ready to vote for the scaled-back Senatebill. But later, he told reporters that Mr. Ryan had assured him and others in a phone conversation that the House would hold talkswith the Senate.
“Let’s see how everything turns out here, guys,” Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., told reporters.
The convoluted developments played out as a divided Senate debated legislation to repeal and replace Mr. Obama’s Affordable Care Act. With Democrats unanimously opposed, the slender 52-48 GOP majority was divided among itself over what it could agree to.
After a comprehensive bill failed on the Senate floor, and a straight-up repeal failed too, Mr. McConnell and his top lieutenants turned a “skinny repeal.” It would package repeal of a few of the most unpopular pieces of the 2010 law, along with a few other measures, with the goal of getting something, anything, out of the Senate.
That would be the ticket to negotiations with the House, which passed its ownlegislation in May.
But that plan caused consternation among GOP senators after rumors began to surface that the House might just pass the “skinny” bill, call it a day and move on to other issues like tax reform after frittering away the first six months of Mr. Trump’s presidency on unsuccessful efforts over health care.
Mr. Ryan responded with a statement that blamed the Senate for being unable to pass anything, but said, “if moving forward requires a conference committee, that is somethingthe House is willing to do.”
The back-and-forth played out as the Senate prepared for a bizarre Capitol Hill ritual, a “vote-arama” on amendments that promised to last into the wee hours of Friday morning — at the end of which, the path ahead would perhaps be clearer.