Senate GOP tables health bill until after July Fourth recess
As GOP struggles, ACA backers call for deal to stabilize system
Senate GOP leaders abruptly shelved their long-sought health-care overhaul Tuesday, asserting they can still salvage it but raising new doubts about whether they will ever deliver on their promises to repeal and replace “Obamacare.”
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who supports repeal, said Tuesday that he intends to address what he called “the bill’s impact on Arizona’s Medicaid system,” a hit that could grow to $7.1 billion by 2027.
“This legislation should reward states like Arizona that are responsibly managing their health care services and controlling costs — not penalize them,” McCain said in a written statement.
ASPEN, COLO. As Senate Republicans struggle to find the votes to repeal the Affordable Care Act, the architects of Obamacare have an idea to try if they fail. Just fix it. Tuesday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., delayed the vote planned for this week on the Republican health care plan as complaints from competing wings of his party made it uncertain whether he commanded the support even to begin debate, much less pass the bill. Those who oppose repealing the Affordable Care Act cautioned that the GOP’s failure to act would create complications of its own, for those who gained insurance coverage through the Obama initiative and just about everybody else. “There’s nothing insurance companies hate more than uncertainty, and one of the things they do to respond to uncertainty is to increase their premiums,” Ezekiel Emanuel, a bioethicist and University of Pennsylvania professor, said in a Capital Download interview Tuesday at the Aspen Ideas Festival. Premiums for those who buy insurance through the Obamacare exchanges, already rising, would increase more, pricing some Americans out of the market. Those who get insurance through their employers would feel the effect as hospitals spread the costs of treating the uninsured. “The notion that anyone in