And just like that … it’s back to square one for healthcare, budgets and taxes
By Mark TrahantTrahantReports.Com So the Senate (and therefore the House) plan to repeal the Affordable Care Act, destroy Medicaid as we know it, and shell out billions in tax cuts for the wealthy is no more. Monday night Utah Sen. Mike Lee and Kansas Sen. Jerry Moran said they would vote against even debating the Senate healthcare bill. So it was defeated by unanimous opposition of Democrats, the Senate’s most conservative members, and Republican Maine Sen. Susan Collins who opposed the Medicaid cuts. “Regretfully, it is now apparent that the effort to repeal and immediately replace the failure of Obamacare will not be successful,” Sen. Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader in the Senate, said late Monday night. “So, in the coming days, the Senate will vote to take up the House bill with the first amendment in order being what a majority of the Senate has already supported in 2015 and that was vetoed by then-President Obama: a repeal of Obamacare with a two-year delay to provide for a stable transition period to a patient-centered health care system that gives Americans access to quality, affordable care.” So plan B, supported by President Donald J. Trump, is a repeal of the Affordable Care Act without a plan to figure out the what’s next? He tweeted: “If Republican Senators are unable to pass what they are working on now, they should immediately REPEAL, and then REPLACE at a later date!”
But that will not be easy either. The idea of a repeal without a plan is crazy when you’r talking about such a huge chunk of the economy. And many Republican senators have already said so. As I have been writing (often) the problem is that the Republicans do not have a governing majority. They are split. Hopelessly. They really needed the healthcare bill (something they have all campaign on) as a glue to keep their coalition together. Now it gets tougher. There are practical problems with a “just repeal” approach too. The Senate language has to be narrowly drafted on fiscal issues in order to meet the test of a budget reconciliation bill. This process is arcane but it eliminates any filibuster by Democrats. It also means there will be no outright repeal (which would require 60 votes to stop the filibuster) just the budget applications of the Affordable Care Act. Complicated, right? The budget the Senate is working off of requires a billion dollars in savings from any repeal. Even this will be tricky. Language that would lift the individual mandate to purchase insurance could also eliminate coverage for pre-existing conditions — and doing that would make health insurance unworkable for the companies. This could cause widespread market panic. Depending on how it’s written, an outright repeal could impact Indian Country because it could include the Indian Health Care Improvement Act. The Senate and House plans were careful to sidestep that issue. This is a blank slate. A political danger zone. However the Senate’s political implosion also shows how difficult it will be for the House and Senate to pass a budget, lift the debt ceiling, and get on with other important work. The House released its budget plan Tuesday morning and it sets its course for using the reconciliation process too. (In theory: Life is so much easier if you don’t need votes from Democrats.) That budget bill will be marked up on Wednesday and it will be tough to win a majority of Republicans. It has every controversial Trump project included, money for a border wall, cuts to social welfare programs, including Medicare. Some Members don’t like the increases in military spending coupled with sharp budget cuts for domestic programs, more than $200 billion worth. (It will be up to committees to figure out where the cuts would happen.) Other Members think there ought to be more cuts. And to make this process even more complicated, the House budget includes tax provisions. That only makes the task ahead more difficult. Buckle your seat belts. Mark Trahant is the Charles R. Johnson Endowed Professor of Journalism at the University of North Dakota. He is an independent journalist and a member of the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes. To read more of his regular #NativeVote16 updates, follow trahantreports.com On Facebook: TrahantReports On Twitter: @TrahantReportsAs I have always said, let ObamaCare fail and then come together and do a great healthcare plan. Stay tuned!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 18, 2017
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