{"id":34155,"date":"2017-07-10T05:05:57","date_gmt":"2017-07-10T05:05:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/?p=34155"},"modified":"2017-07-10T05:05:57","modified_gmt":"2017-07-10T05:05:57","slug":"senate-republicans-head-back-to-work-with-no-health-care-deal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/news\/senate-republicans-head-back-to-work-with-no-health-care-deal.html","title":{"rendered":"Senate Republicans head back to work with no health-care deal"},"content":{"rendered":"

Senate Republicans head back to work with no health-care deal<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n

Senate Republicans head back to work with no health-care deal:- Senate Republicans returned to Washington from a holiday recess with new and deepening disagreements about their health-care bill, with key Republicans differing Sunday not merely on how to amend the bill, but also on whether a bill could pass at all.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI would probably put that as 50-50,\u201d Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) said in a \u201cFox News Sunday\u201d interview.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThey will get a repeal and replace bill done,\u201d White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus said on the same show.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cMy view is it\u2019s probably going to be dead,\u201d Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said on CBS\u2019s \u201cFace the Nation.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell\u2019s decision to push debate on the Better Care Reconciliation Act past the Independence Day recess was supposed to create space for dealmaking. \u201cLegislation of this complexity almost always takes longer than anybody else would hope,\u201d McConnell (Ky.) said at a June 27 news conference announcing the delay.<\/span><\/p>\n

Instead, Republicans have run in different directions, proposing everything from a bipartisan deal to pay for insurance subsidies to a \u201crepeal and delay\u201d plan that would give them a few years before the Affordable Care Act would be fully gutted.<\/span><\/p>\n

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.), the author of a \u201cConsumer Freedom Option\u201d amendment designed to bring conservatives on board with the bill, spent part of Sunday insisting that its critics were wrong. His amendment, also supported by Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), would allow insurers to once again offer cheaper plans that did not include the Affordable Care Act\u2019s essential health benefits.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cYou have millions of people who are winners straight off: young people,\u201d said Cruz in a \u201cFace the Nation\u201d interview. \u201cYoung people get hammered by Obamacare. Millions of young people suddenly have much lower premiums.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Over the recess, however, key Republicans told local media outlets that the amendment weakened protections that the party had promised to keep in place.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI think that reopens an issue that I can\u2019t support, that it would make it too difficult for people with preexisting conditions to get coverage,\u201d Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) told the Charleston Gazette-Mail on Friday.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a real feeling that that\u2019s subterfuge to get around preexisting conditions,\u201d Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) told Iowa Public Radio on Wednesday. \u201cIf it is, in fact, subterfuge, and it has the effect of annihilating the preexisting conditions requirement that we have in the existing bill, then obviously I would object to that.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

On ABC\u2019s \u201cThis Week,\u201d Cruz said that colleagues such as Grassley were simply being misled. \u201cWhat\u2019s being repeated there is what [Senate Minority Leader Charles E.] Schumer said this week, which is that he called it a hoax,\u201d he said. \u201cChuck Schumer and Barack Obama know a lot about health-care hoaxes.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Schumer\u2019s Democrats, meanwhile, have continued campaigning against the BCRA, saying that they will come to the table on health care only if Republicans give up on repeal. Throughout the recess, progressive activists, urged on by Democrats, protested and occupied the offices of Republican senators. On Friday, 16 protesters were arrested at the Columbus office of Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio), joining dozens arrested in civil disobedience around the country.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe aren\u2019t going to allow a handful of Socialists, many of whom are from New York, to disrupt our ability to serve the needs of the Ohio constituents who contact us in need of vital services every day,\u201d Portman\u2019s office said in a statement.<\/span><\/p>\n

Still, opponents of the health-care bill were far more visible than its supporters. The pro-Trump organization America First Policies floated then abandoned a plan to organize pro-BCRA rallies. While no prominent Senate Democrats appeared on Sunday\u2019s talk shows, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) spent the day rallying voters in West Virginia and Kentucky against the bill.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cMitch McConnell is now trying to make side deals in order to win votes,\u201d Sanders said in West Virginia. \u201cI say to Senator Capito: Please do not fall for that old trick. This legislation is fatally flawed, and no small tweak here or there will undo the massive damage that it will cause to West Virginia and the entire country.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Republicans, meanwhile, were openly talking about next steps if they could not amend the BCRA to win 50 votes. (Vice President Pence, who has signaled that the White House would sign off on any repeal bill, would cast the tiebreaking vote.) On \u201cFox News Sunday,\u201d Cassidy suggested that his own bipartisan legislation to continue much of the Affordable Care Act could get a second look, and that in the meantime, Republicans could work with Democrats to provide more subsidies for private plans.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI do think we have to do something for market stabilization,\u201d said Cassidy. \u201cOtherwise, people who are paying premiums of $20,000, $30,000 and $40,000 will pay even that much more.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Other Republicans, including McConnell, had warned that the BCRA\u2019s failure would lead to a deal on subsidies. Yet conservatives, not ruling out the bill\u2019s passage, spent the weekend talking up another backup plan. At a Republican fundraising dinner in Iowa, Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.) suggested that Republicans could repeal most of the ACA, forcing Democrats to the table to work on a replacement.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIf we can\u2019t replace and repeal at the same time, then repeal the law and stay and work on replace full time,\u201d said Sasse.<\/span><\/p>\n

On Fox, Cassidy \u2014 one of the Senate\u2019s few physicians \u2014 said the repeal-and-delay plan was a fantasy.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt gives all the power to people who actually don\u2019t believe in President Trump\u2019s campaign pledges, who actually don\u2019t want to continue to cover and care for preexisting conditions and to lower premiums,\u201d Cassidy said. \u201cIt gives them the stronger hand. I think it\u2019s wrong.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Source:-\u00a0https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/powerpost\/senate-republicans-head-back-to-work-with-no-health-care-deal\/2017\/07\/09\/fc851644-64b7-11e7-8eb5-cbccc2e7bfbf_story.html?utm_term=.782edc7066f1<\/span><\/p>\n

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