Midnight drama on health bill

The GOP’s last-ditch effort to repeal ObamaCare moved into the early-morning hours Friday as senators prepared to vote for a “skinny” version of the bill that could be amended in conjunction with the House.

“It won’t end with this,” Sen. David Perdue (R-Ga.), said. “It’s going to go to conference.”

And if the House passes the bare-bones bill?

“That’s a risk, but I presume there will be assurances . . . that that’s probably not going to happen,” Perdue said.

The bill, the text of which was released late Thursday night, would repeal the individual mandate, the employer mandate and defund Planned Parenthood.

The Congressional Budget Office said it would result in 16 million more uninsured people, although the majority of those now insured only because of the individual mandate — which fines them if they have no coverage — would be leaving voluntarily.

The CBO report also said premiums would rise 20 percent.

Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-NY) made an impassioned plea shortly after midnight to reject the bill. Conceding that Democrats and Republicans alike have been responsible for years of gridlock, he asked for a bipartisan effort to come up with something better.

Republicans, however, were hoping that if the bill passed in the upper chamber, lawmakers would hammer out a final version with the House.

Echoing Perdue, Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) said the Senate would “send the bill over with every belief that the House will go to conference.”

House Speaker Paul Ryan’s office said he would reserve judgment on whether to call for a conference committee until he sees what the Senate passes and consults with his members.

“It’s anybody’s guess what they [the senators] actually come out with,” Ryan (R-Wis.) said. One Republican senator agreed. “I don’t know whether at the end of this process, it’s going to be fat, skinny, bulimic, anorexic . . . This is not being orchestrated, I can assure you,” Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) told Politico.

If a conference committee is convened, members would have to come up with a new bill to resolve the differences between the House and Senate versions.

That bill would then be voted upon in both chambers.

White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci earlier compared President Trump’s battle to reform health care to Lincoln’s fight to abolish slavery.

“If you’ve read ‘ Team of Rivals,’ it took Lincoln three or four times to get what he wanted from the Senate and the House of Representatives,” he said.