Republican effort to repeal ACA fizzles
Three GOP senators oppose revised bill
WASHINGTON — The latest Republican effort to unwind the Affordable Care Act collapsed Monday as a third GOP senator announced her opposition and left the proposal short of the votes needed to pass.
While one top Republican senator held out the possibility that the Senate might still vote on the bill, others accepted the reality that the push had sputtered out after Sen. Susan Collins R-Maine, joined two of her colleagues in formal opposition.
“Everybody knows that’s going to fail,” said Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, who led a raucous, five-hour hearing on the bill Monday afternoon. “You don’t have one Democrat vote for it. So it’s going to fail.”
Monday’s developments amounted to a massive setback to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and President Donald Trump, who spent the past week trying to rally support for a last-ditch attempt to fulfill a sevenyear Republican promise. The effort lost much of its steam in the last four days, as it became clear that the new proposal had not resolved the same disagreements that had plagued Republicans in the failed July push.
Collins, R-Maine, announced that she could not back the measure — which would redistribute federal health care funding across the country and sharply curb spending on Medicaid — moments after a much-anticipated Congressional Budget Office analysis forecast that “millions” of Americans would lose coverage by 2026 if it was enacted.
Two GOP senators — Rand Paul of Kentucky and John McCain of Arizona — had already come out against the bill, even after a new draft emerged Monday morning. Republicans hold a 52 to 48 advantage in the Senate and can lose only two votes from their party and still pass legislation with the help of a tiebreaking vote from Vice President Pence.
A fourth Republican, Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, indicated through his aides Monday that he could not back the bill in its current form because it does not go far enough in repealing the 2010 law.
Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn, R-Texas, did not rule out the possibility of holding a Senate vote on the proposal despite clear signs that the bill did not have sufficient votes to pass. Many Republicans feel pressure from voters to keep pushing to repeal the ACA before moving on to other issues.
“There are a lot of people who want to vote yes and be recorded as voting yes,” Cornyn said, adding that the Republican conference would decide the matter Tuesday, when they will meet for the first time since leaving for recess last week. “I think there is some advantage to showing you’re trying and doing the best you can.”
Neither a series of last-minute changes over the weekend nor the CBO’s preliminary analysis had managed to shift any votes in the bill’s favor. If anything, the CBO report worsened the bill’s chances by noting that it was impossible to forecast the number of Americans likely to lose coverage but that “the direction of the effect is clear.” The report also estimated a $1 trillion loss of federal funding for Medicaid by 2026.
Collins delivered a scathing assessment of the bill in a statement, saying the fourth version that the senators had produced in an effort to win new votes “is as deeply flawed as the previous iterations.”
Speaking to reporters Monday evening, the senator said the administration had lobbied her hard to endorse the bill — and she received a call from the president himself before the CBO score was announced.
“I told him that I would go back and look at the numbers one more time, but I was straightforward with him that I was not likely to be a yes vote,” she said, adding the process has been too hasty. “Last night, a whole new bill came out, which to me epitomizes the problem.”
Speaking on the Senate floor Monday, McConnell thanked Cassidy and Graham but suggested that their work had stalled out. He thanked other lawmakers and committees of jurisdiction, as one might do at the official conclusion of a legislative push.
“I’d like to thank each of these committees, their chairs, their members and their staffs for their hard work to provide the American people with a better way than Obamacare and its years of failures,” McConnell said.
The legislation’s sponsors had rewritten the bill to deliver more money to Alaska and Maine than the original version, in the hopes of winning over Collins and Sen. Lisa Murkowski, Alaska, another key GOP centrist.
The contentious debate erupted into public view Monday afternoon as protesters chanted so loudly at the hearing’s outset that Hatch was forced to temporarily adjourn as police officers arrested and removed several of them.
“No cuts to Medicaid! Save our liberty!” screamed one woman in a wheelchair as she was wheeled out.
Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon the top Democrat on the panel, questioned why Republicans were rushing to pass a measure this week that was just having its first hearing, and one which he considered “a lemon.”
“Nobody has to buy a lemon, just because it’s the last car on the lot,” Wyden said.