Obamacare Replacement Effort Plunged into Uncertainty

After failing to muster the 50 votes necessary to even bring the partial repeal and replace of Obamacare to consideration on the Senate floor, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell announced Tuesday the health care vote would be delayed until after the week-long July Fourth recess.

Several conservative and moderate GOP senators publicly opposed the health care bill, and their opposition was not quelled by a last-minute push from leadership.

“I think you may have already heard, we’re going to continue the discussions within our conference on the differences that we have, that we’re continuing to try to litigate,” McConnell said at a press conference Tuesday. “Consequently, we will not be on the bill this week, but we’re still working toward getting at least 50 people in a comfortable place.”

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Later in the day Tuesday President Donald Trump hosted the entire Senate GOP caucus at the White House to discuss next steps for the critical Republican agenda item. McConnell addressed reporters after the meeting, saying the Senate will “continue to work on reaching an agreement that will involve continuing discussion until the end of the week,” although the bill wouldn’t come up for a vote until “a couple of weeks after this week.”

“We made good progress. The president got the opportunity to hear from the various members that have concerns about market reforms and Medicaid, the future of Medicaid, and Medicaid expansion. I think the meeting was very helpful,” McConnell added. “The one thing that I would say is that everybody around the table is interested in getting to yes, interested in getting an outcome. Because we know the status quo is simply unacceptable, unsustainable, and no action is just not an option.”

Ultimately, McConnell made the case that “we need to come up with a solution. The American people elected us to do that, and we’re working hard to get there.”

Conservative senators, including Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), have argued the bill fails to fulfill GOP promises to fully “repeal and replace” the Affordable Care Act — leaving in place too much of the infrastructure of the original law, which gave government control over much of the health care marketplace and expanded Medicaid.

“If Republicans cannot come up with a bill … the system is going to collapse because it is untenable, and people are going to get really angry in the meantime.”

More moderate senators such as Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska have expressed trepidation over dialing back the expansion of Medicaid.

“I think that you’ve got people like the senator from Alaska and Collins who really are RINOs [Republicans in Name Only] and really are fine with the ACA in terms of its coverage expansion,” said Dr. Ramin Oskoui, a leading cardiologist in the Washington, D.C., area and senior health care adviser to LifeZette. “They just don’t have a clue as to how things are going to be paid for.”

“The critical issue is does it lower cost, not how it affects coverage. Look, you can rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic and still go down,” Oskoui added. “I think it’s a way of avoiding legislative defeat and buying McConnell some time to do some horse trading.”

Conservatives like Paul, however, feel the Senate’s attempt “was nothing like what was promised to the American people,” Oskoui noted.

After meeting with Trump individually Tuesday, Paul issued a tweet, saying, “Just came from WH. @realDonaldTrump is open to making bill better. Is Senate leadership?”

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“The reason it’s a hard ‘no’ is because Collins and Rand see the problem in exactly the opposite way. And that’s it. That can’t be reconciled,” Oskoui said. “She might as well be a Democrat. He is as close to being a conservative as you can have and still get elected in this country.”

Trump addressed reporters after the meeting flanked by Collins and Murkowski.

“We have no choice but to solve this situation [because Obamacare] is a total disaster,” he said. Projecting some optimism, the president added he thought “we have a chance to do something very, very important for the public” and “very, very important for the people of our country that we love.”

“So we’re going to talk and we’re going to see what we can do. We’re getting very close. But for the country, we have to have health care. And it can’t be Obamacare, which is melting down,” Trump said. “This will be great if we get it done. 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, and I understand that very well.”

Trump added that “the Senate bill is going to be great” whenever it manages to attract enough support to come up for a successful vote, whenever that may be. (go to page 2 to continue reading)[lz_pagination]