Washington – Senate Republicans are revving up a final push to scuttle President Barack Obama’s health care law. Though the effort faces low odds of success and just a two-week window to prevail, Democrats backed by doctors, hospitals, and patients’ groups are mustering an all-out effort to smother the GOP drive once and for all.
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The latest attempt is being led by GOP Sens. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Louisiana’s Bill Cassidy. Their 141-page bill would replace much of Obama’s statute with block grants to states and would give them wide leeway to decide how to spend the money. It would also end Obama’s requirement that most Americans buy insurance and that companies offer coverage to workers.
A victory would let President Donald Trump and Senate leaders claim redemption on one of their top priorities, nearly two months after the chamber rejected earlier “repeal and replace” legislation and dealt a painful blow to the GOP.
After that embarrassing setback, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said he’d not revisit the issue unless he was assured he had the votes he needed to succeed. He and other Republicans began refocusing on another big priority, a tax overhaul.
The sponsors say their proposal would let states decide what health care programs work best for their residents. Opponents say the plan’s cuts in Medicaid and easing of Obama’s insurance requirements would cause millions to become uninsured and leave others with skimpy, unaffordable coverage.
The earlier Republican effort crashed in July when the GOP-led Senate defeated three proposals for scrapping Obama’s 2010 overhaul.
Cassidy and Graham have asserted they’re close to rounding up the 50 Senate votes they’d need to win. Vice President Mike Pence would cast the tie-breaking vote.
But as it was in July, getting 50 votes from the chamber Republicans control 52-48 will be difficult.
Conservative Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., has already said he’ll oppose the bill. Other Republicans who’ve not yet lined up behind it include Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski, Susan Collins of Maine, Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia and Ohio’s Rob Portman.
Collins, Murkowski and McCain voted against the last measure Republicans tried pushing through the Senate in July, which failed 51-49.
Republicans only have until Sept. 30 to succeed with just 50 votes. Special procedures preventing Democrats from using a filibuster to kill the measure will expire after that, and Republicans would need 60 votes to win.
That’s a number they won’t reach because Democrats unanimously oppose the GOP effort.
Complicating their prospects, Republicans are waiting for an analysis by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, which is needed before the Senate can vote.
The budget agency’s evaluations of past GOP repeal plans concluded they would have caused millions of Americans to lose insurance coverage, an outcome many Republicans are unwilling to accept.
Top Democrats including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., wrote to the budget office Monday asking that its analysis be “comprehensive,” including showing the number of people that would lose coverage and the plan’s impact on premiums.
Obamacare cost 160 million hard workig Americans tons more in health costs. Anyone not under government sunsidized insurance saw health costs sky rocket. This is a fact and you can ask around at your local shul etc.. I’d like someone to find me an indivudal not on government inusrance who is happy with his current plan vs pre ACA days
So why not single payer?
Because its will stifle innovation and talent. It will ruin our first class second to none health care system.
Doctors need to get paid well so we get the best. We need to reward innovators and top notch medical centers that invest in innovative care.
Private insurance is also a huge part of innovation. But wait isn’t all about corporations getting rich. Studies show profit margins at health insurers are at 3.6%. The savings that are made from innovation and efficiency vs government insurance far surpasses that. Programs like work on wellness save companies lots of money. All that CEO pay and shareholder profits does not add up to its cost savings
In a nuthsell, us consumers want our top notch health care with top dr’s and facilities. We don’t want some cheap government insurance that will mess around with our health care and offer us less choices
“Innovation has never come and will never come from insurance companies”
Lie #1 : Private insurers are the leaders in innovation and cost savings . Here are two examples
1) work on wellness. Medcaid does not offer it while private insurers do. I am personally enrolled in a work on wellness program. I got paid money to stay healthy and guess what it works. Thanks to the program I am on a path to a much healthier lifestyle.
2) Digital application process. For Medicaid its all still by hand. You can’t apply online. Medicaid cannot just automate with the IRS and pick up your income digitally. That requires a larger staff and costs more
“intelligent young men and women who are interested in curing diseases and alleviating suffering.”
Thats Lie#2,
People have values an are altruistic but up to a point. If they are saddled in debt from medical school and work like a dog on 12 hour shifts they can’t get by on medicad’s cheap payments. And we see the consequences already with pediatricians who get paid very little already. There is a vast shortage and the only way for many to get by is by being institutionalized & having mass production where you never get the dr and only get PA’s
Sorry Archy, based on personal experience, Lie #1 is a lie.
1) I get regular emails from Medicare about wellness resources.
2) I applied for Medicare coverage on line six months before I turned 65. It took about 5 minutes, and I was approved shortly thereafter. In the two years since, I spoke to a Medicare human once. Everything else I’ve done electronically.