“Never before has a president asked for a certain amount of money, the Congress refused to provide that amount, and then the president spent the amount he asked for anyway,” Sen. Lamar Alexander (R., Tenn.) said.
The Senate Takes Up Health Care Reform
The Senate will take up health care reform after a revised version of the American Health Care Act (AHCA) passed through the House last Thursday.
Senator Roy Blunt (R-MO), a member of Senate leadership, said that the Senate will wait for a new CBO score before preceding to a vote.
.. Mick Mulvaney, head of the Office of Management and Budget, said, “The bill that passed out of the House is most likely not going to be the bill that is put in front of the president.”
Members of the working group include Sens.
- Mitch McConnell,
- Bob Portman (R-OH),
- John Corynyn (R-TX),
- John Thune (R-SD),
- Mike Enzi (R-WY),
- Orrin Hatch (R-UT),
- Lamar Alexander (R-TN),
- Tom Cotton (R-AR),
- Cory Gardner (R-CO),
- Ted Cruz (R-TX),
- John Barrasso (R-WY), and
- Pat Toomey (R-PA).
.. The Senate working group does not feature two of the bill’s biggest critics, Senators Susan Collins (R-ME) and Bill Cassidy (R-LA).
.. The two senators joined a separate group of Republicans studying potential health care solutions including Sens.
- Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV),
- Johnny Isakson (R-GA), and
- Mike Rounds (R-SD)
- Susan Collins (R-ME)
- Bill Cassidy (R-LA)
.. Senators Cassidy and Collins released a separate Obamacare repeal bill, The Patient Freedom Act.
States have three options under the Cassidy-Collins plan:
- Retain the Affordable Care Act, allowing individuals and small businesses able to purchase insurance on state exchanges and low-income residents can receive federal subsidies to cover the cost of the program. States that expanded Medicaid can continue to provide increased Medicaid coverage.
- States can receive most of the federal funding, including Medicaid expansion and subsidies to create tax-free Health Savings Accounts for low-income citizens. Low-income residents can use the HSAs to purchase insurance and pay for health care.
- Allow states to create an alternative solution without federal assistance. States would retain the power to design and regulate insurance markets without federal intervention.
.. Senators Rand Paul (R-KY), Mike Lee (R-UT), and Ted Cruz (R-TX) were the strongest opponents of the American Health Care Act. Senator Paul crafted his own conservative plan for repealing Obamacare and worked with the Freedom Caucus to push for an even more conservative Obamacare repeal bill. The Freedom Caucus endorsed Sen. Paul’s plan.
Why Paul Ryan needs Donald Trump so badly
This proposal was crafted trying to thread a needle between two competing corners of the House GOP Conference: the far-right blockade and a much larger, less vocal crowd from states where their governors accepted the expanded Medicaid provision in the 2010 ACA.
Some Freedom Caucus folks have been strenuously opposed to the proposed tax credits for purchasing insurance, saying it’s a new form of entitlement, and many want to more quickly phase out the Medicaid expansion.
.. If Trump ever fully leans into this legislation, giving it the full-forced endorsement that he’s proven capable of on other issues, Ryan and House GOP leaders believe that the conservative opposition will dissolve quickly.
.. not once but twice he said he wouldn’t sign any bill that “didn’t take care of our people.”
.. Some politicians let bygones be bygones if they win ([Chuck] Schumer is very much like this; he wins, there’s no grudge held, it’s water under the bridge). Trump strikes me as someone who holds grudges, but I’m not certain.
.. But if this disintegrates, if there’s no repeal of Obamacare, it’s bad, very bad, for both men – and what it does to their relationship for the next few years.
.. most House Republicans are more afraid of not approving a bill to repeal Obamacare, any bill to repeal Obamacare, regardless of its fate in the Senate, than to simply do nothing.
.. The way the districts are drawn, the way the funding mechanisms of campaigns now work, the activism of the two bases of the parties – it all pushes members to the extreme. They now act almost entirely at the behest of their base rather than what they believe is the right thing for the country.
.. McConnell has to come up with his own bill that will tilt more friendly to the [Rob]Portman/[Shelley Moore] Capito crowd, which might upset Ted Cruz and Mike Lee but I’m still not certain that in the end Cruz is willing to be the guy who blocks Donald Trump’s first big initiative... I think the two worst character traits in today’s Congress are fear and contentment... You just have to be willing to work hard, willing to go home as much as possible to explain yourself and to run a really disciplined, well-funded campaign if you get a primary. Folks like Lamar Alexander, Lindsey Graham, Tom Cole, Jack Reed, Frank Pallone — these are are all people who’ve done more than their fair share of bipartisan deals in the Senate and House. Some have faced down tough primary elections.They’re all still here.
.. The “contentment” character trait is that too many lawmakers are content with what they have: a tiny fiefdom. They’d rather not rock the boat because that means they might have to work really hard to win re-election.
.. The biggest change that I’ve seen over those years is the shrinking number of leaders on Capitol Hill; not the actual elected leaders, but the men and women in the rank-and-file who commanded the policy brigade and through the sheer force of their character made themselves players. They weren’t afraid and they weren’t content.
Health-Law Backers Target Key Republican Lawmakers
Some senators are leery of repealing the Affordable Care Act without a new plan lined up
.. The “repeal and delay” strategy, as critics call it, has emerged because Republicans haven’t coalesced behind a single proposal to replace the Affordable Care Act, with divisions largely about how ambitious to be in reworking the law... GOP leaders hope a repeal and looming expiration date would pressure Democrats to get behind a Republican-crafted plan... Mr. Alexander, who chairs the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee and will play a big role in the debate, has been using the phrase “replace and then repeal”—reversing ACA opponents’usual slogan—to sum up his position.