Portman on health bill: Why rush it?
WASHINGTON — Calling it an “arbitrary deadline,” Sen. Rob Portman objected Tuesday to plans by Senate Republican leaders to pass an Obamacare replacement before the July 4 holiday weekend, saying instead “we have to get it right.”
In a conference call with reporters, Portman tersely acknowledged that he has not even seen the bill drafted by
a group led by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., saying he doubted “you will find anyone who knows what is in it. If they have, I’d like to see it.”
Although the Ohio Republican backs an overhaul of the 2010 Affordable Care Act, he expressed fears that “if we try to squeeze it in a short period of time we won’t get it right, and we have to get it right.”
He added, “I have never said we should have an arbitrary deadline.”
Portman declined to directly criticize McConnell, but he made clear he prefers Senate hearings on any proposed health care bill. McConnell said Tuesday he wants to make the bill public by Thursday and push for a final floor vote next week.
But with Senate Republicans holding just 52 seats and Democrats universally against it, the bill will collapse if McConnell loses the votes of three Republicans. And Portman said he is “not going to make any decisions” on the proposal until he sees details.
Senate Republican frustration with the secrecy surrounding the GOP bill erupted in full view Tuesday on Capitol Hill as Democrats, headed by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., taunted Republicans by saying “they want to bring the bill to the floor, rush it in the dark of night, for a simple reason — they are ashamed of their bill.”
The House approved its own version last month, but that bill has run into intense opposition from many Senate Republicans. President Donald Trump called the House measure “mean” — even though he hosted a celebratory Rose Garden gathering with House members when it passed.
White House spokesman Sean Spicer said Tuesday that Trump “clearly wants a bill that has heart in it. He believes that health care is something that is near and dear to so many families and individuals.”
Vice President Mike Pence told the National Association of Manufacturers Summit on Tuesday, “I want to assure you, before this summer is over, working with the leaders in the Congress even as we speak, President Donald Trump and this Congress will keep their promise to the American people, and we will repeal and replace Obamacare.”
Lobbyists and lawmakers said final decisions had yet to be made on some issues, including how to make sure that health care tax subsidies that Republicans would provide cannot be used to buy insurance that covers abortion.
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office concluded last month that the House bill would increase the number of people without insurance or government coverage by 23 million by 2026.
Obamacare has extended coverage to millions of Americans through federally subsidized individual insurance plans and expanded eligibility to Medicaid, the joint federal and state program that provides health care to low-income people.
Portman sharply objected to the House bill for eliminating federal dollars in 2020 to pay for Medicaid expansion. Ohio Gov. John Kasich used the expanded Medicaid program to provide coverage to more than 700,000 low-income people in the state, including many caught up in the opioid epidemic.
Instead, Portman has pushed for a more-gradual phaseout of the expanded Medicaid program by providing seven additional years of federal money to help Ohio and other states afford the program through at least 2027. But after that year, many people who would have qualified for expanded Medicaid would be without coverage. Kasich has said he could support such a gradual drawdown if states got enough money and flexibility.
Before former President Barack Obama signed the 2010 health care bill into law, roughly 47 million Americans lacked health coverage. Because most Americans receive their health coverage through their employers, Medicare or Medicaid, Obamacare aimed to make individual policies more affordable while expanding Medicaid.
Obamacare has allowed states to provide Medicaid coverage to families of four earning as much as $33,948 a year, which is 138 percent of the federal poverty level.
By last year, the number of Americans without any insurance coverage had dropped to 28 million.