Senate GOP Obamacare repeal off to rocky start
As GOP leaders dismiss objections about the lack of diversity in group writing the bill, problems about content are also brewing
Republican senators crafting a plan to repeal and replace Obamacare got off to a rocky start Tuesday after leaders selected more than a dozen senators to draft a bill but did not include a single woman — sparking immediate fire from within their own ranks.
As they scrambled to downplay the bad optics of an all-white, allmale group writing the health care bill, GOP leaders also faced a bevy of bigger problems on substance — with disagreements bubbling up over everything from how to handle Medicaid expansion to whether to defund Planned Parenthood.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., dismissed questions about adding women to the working group during a news conference because, he said, there are several GOP senator groups engaged in health care.
“The working group that counts is all 52 of us. Nobody’s being excluded based upon gender,” McConnell said.
Republicans narrowly squeezed a bill to repeal and replace Obamacare through the House last week, and now the burden falls on the Senate. But the House bill — which suffered a series of setbacks before passing — has multiple flash points for Senate Republicans.
“We have our work cut out for us,” Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, told reporters when asked whether the Senate planned to keep anything from the House bill. “We’ll just have to see.”
GOP leaders plan to use a special budget tactic called reconciliation to prevent Democrats from filibustering the health care bill, meaning it can pass with a simple majority instead of 60 votes. But even that will be difficult. No Democrats are expected to vote for the bill, so at least 50 Republicans need to support it to pass — and that’s with Vice President Pence’s tie-breaker vote.
Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, one of the most conservative Republicans, said he hoped that defunding Planned Parenthood would be within the bill. But that’s likely to create a rift with Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, who is one of the most moderate GOP senators. She has voted against previous Obamacare repeal bills that included such language.
“I believe it is not right to deny a woman her choice of health care providers when it comes to family planning, cancer screening, well-women care. There already is a federal ban against using taxpayer dollars for abortion and I don’t understand why the Planned Parenthood issue is even being linked to the rewrite” of the Affordable Care Act, Collins said Tuesday.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, has also expressed concern about cuts to the women’s health organization but has not said which way she would vote.
Another sticking point: the ACA’s Medicaid expansion, which allowed states to add low-income childless adults to that joint state-federal health care program with Washington picking up most of the tab. Moderate Republicans want to protect those who gained insurance under the provision, while conservatives want to shrink the program dramatically.
Ohio Sen. Rob Portman, a member of the GOP working group, said he will not support any bill that “pulls the rug out” from those people.