After GOP defections, health vote put on hold
Regrouping: White House meeting seeks to bring holdouts on board
WASHINGTON » Senate Republican leaders bowed to pressure from within their own ranks Tuesday and postponed a vote to overhaul the Affordable Care Act until after the Fourth of July recess, raising new doubts about their ability to fulfill one of the GOP’s core promises.
The delay, which exposes lawmakers to a barrage of lobbying as they face their constituents over the holiday, has left a measure designed to pass swiftly this week teetering in the balance. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., had little choice after the number of Senate Republicans who said they would not support a move to bring up the bill this week rose to five after a new budget analysis of the bill.
In an effort to bring reluctant Republicans along, President Donald Trump convened a meeting of the Senate GOP Conference in the East Room of the White House
on Tuesday afternoon, where members aired grievances about what has been a secretive and contentious process. Even amid the newfound harmony, it was clear that the legislation would still need changes to secure enough votes.
“The president got an opportunity to learn all the various positions on things that we’ve been discussing,” McConnell said after the gathering. “We all agreed that, because the markets are imploding, we need to reach an agreement among ourselves here as soon as possible and then move to the floor after the recess.”
Just how realistic a vote is after July 4 remains unclear. At least one Republican senator who had publicly opposed the procedural vote McConnell had hoped to take Tuesday — Dean Heller of Nevada — indicated that he was willing to talk about the bill again.
At the White House, Heller complained about a Trump-allied super PAC that was airing ads against him in Nevada. By Tuesday night, the group had decided to pull the ads, and Heller had signaled to McConnell that he was at the negotiating table — far from a “yes” vote, but open to discussing his concerns. Heller’s willingness to deal prompted the super PAC to back down, said two Republicans familiar with the deliberations.
Nonetheless, huge hurdles remain.
Conservatives are blasting the plan for leaving in place too much of the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, while a coalition of patient advocates, doctors and senior citizens’ groups have joined Democrats in decrying its proposed cuts to the Medicaid program and rollback of taxes on the wealthy.
On Tuesday, Club for Growth President David McIntosh, who has clashed with Republican Party leaders in the past, issued a statement saying the proposal “restores Obamacare.”
“Only in Washington does repeal translate to restore,” McIntosh said. “And while it’s hard to imagine, in some ways the Senate’s legislation would make our nation’s failing health care system worse.”
Progressive groups began laying the groundwork to attend senators’ public events, while medical providers and groups representing Americans with chronic illnesses predicted that the bill could leave millions without access to adequate medical care. The Congressional Budget Office concluded Monday that the measure would cause an estimated 22 million more Americans to be uninsured by the end of the coming decade while reducing federal spending by $321 billion.
Atul Grover, executive vice president of the Association of American Medical Colleges, told reporters that he and other doctors “take it personally” that the bill would lock people out of insurance for six months if they go for 63 days without a health plan and try to sign up for one the next year.
“We’re there at the bedside,” he said, adding that none of his members would be willing to tell a patient: “I’m sorry about your stagefour cancer. Come back in six months, when your insurance kicks in.”
With Vice President Mike Pence ready to cast a tiebreaking vote on the measure, Republican leaders can lose only two of their 52 members to pass the bill, which no Democrat is willing to support.
At the White House, the president sat between two of the bill’s holdouts — Sens. Lisa Murkowski, Alaska, and Susan Collins, Maine — and said Republicans are “getting very close” to securing the votes they need even as he acknowledged that they might fail.
“This will be great if we get it done,” he said, “and if we don’t get it done, it’s just going to be something that we’re not going to like — and that’s OK. I understand that very well.”
Members who publicly opposed the bill had faced a full-court lobbying press from party leaders, but they resisted it anyway. Within the past 2 ½ days, Sen. Ron Johnson, Wis., has spoken with Trump, Pence, Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price and House Speaker Paul Ryan, Wis. Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., spoke by phone with Trump on Monday and was scheduled to meet with him Tuesday before the vote was scuttled.
Johnson said he was “grateful” that the vote was postponed, adding that the “real deadline” would arrive when the Affordable Care Act’s insurance markets collapse.
Other Republicans, such as Sen. Patrick Toomey, Pa., acknowledged that the delay could just as easily jeopardize the bill’s prospects. More time, he said, “could be good and it could be bad.”
Organizers at numerous “Resistance” groups, chastened by their premature celebrations after the House’s repeal effort seemed to stall, said that they will use the recess to ramp up pressure on Republicans. CREDO Action, which had organized 45,000 phone calls to Senate offices, planned to increase that number when senators went home. NARAL Pro-Choice America, Planned Parenthood, Move On and Daily Action were organizing their own phone banks, while Indivisible groups were organizing visits — and perhaps sit-ins — at local offices.
All of that would supplement under-the-radar but attention-grabbing TV ad campaigns from AARP, Protect Our Care and other progressive and industry groups.
Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., said that although “the fight is not over,” he is confident that Republicans will not succeed because their proposals remain unpopular with the public.
“The Republican bill is rotten at the core,” Schumer said. “We have a darn good chance of defeating it, a week from now, a month from now, a year from now.”