Senate healthcare bill appears headed for failure
By Alexander Bolton - 07/23/17 04:55 PM EDT Senate Republicans plan to vote this week on revised healthcare reform legislation, but a number of serious problems mean that the chances of getting that bill passed are slim to none.
The latest wallop of bad news for Republicans came Friday when the Senate parliamentarian announced that key provisions of the revised bill would not pass muster under the special budgetary rules that Republicans are using to pass the legislation with a simple majority instead of 60 votes.
There is no indication yet from Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who was diagnosed last week with brain cancer, that he will be back in Washington in time for a vote — which means that GOP leaders may be starting one vote short.
Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), who has already announced her opposition to the Senate healthcare bill, on Sunday criticized what she called a confusing and disjointed process.
She said a vote is likely Tuesday, but said senators still don’t know whether they’ll vote on the House-passed measure, one of several Senate versions or a bill that simply repeals as much of the law as possible and sets a two year transition period for crafting a yet-to-be-determined replacement.
“I don’t think that’s a good approach to facing legislation that affects millions of people and one sixth of our economy,” she said on CBS’s “Face the Nation.”
Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), another opponent, called the revised Senate version a “pork fest.”
“They're dumping billions of dollars into pet projects for individual senators,” he said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
Republicans control 52 Senate seats and can only afford two defections, since Vice President Mike Pence would break a 50-50 tie.
Without McCain, Collins and Paul, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) does not have enough support to pass the bill.
McConnell appeared skeptical last week of getting 50 votes — the magic number — on the Senate bill that he and his Senate GOP colleagues have negotiated for months.
He announced on Monday, nearly a week ago, that “regretfully, it is now apparent that the effort to repeal and immediately replace the failure of ObamaCare will not be successful.”
He proposed voting to proceed to the House-passed healthcare bill and then replacing it with an amendment to repeal as much of ObamaCare as possible, setting up a two-year transition period to craft replacement legislation.
Two Republican senators who attended Wednesday’s meeting with President Trump at the White House say McConnell revived the Senate’s version of the repeal-and-replace legislation after Trump pressed him directly on it.
“He kept saying, ‘Mitch, don’t just vote on the motion to proceed, vote on the bill itself,’” said a GOP senator, who requested anonymity to discuss a conversation in a private meeting. The lawmaker made reference to the Better Care Reconciliation Act, the Senate repeal-and-replace bill.
A second lawmaker confirmed that Trump pressed McConnell to insist on a vote on the Senate repeal-and-replace bill, not just the motion to proceed to the House bill and the repeal-only bill.
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http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/343379-senate-healthcare-bill-appears-headed-for-failure
