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The Graham-Cassidy health care bill, the most recent effort to repeal Obamacare, has been defeated. With only three days remaining before the budget reconciliation deadline runs out, this attempt is as dead as it gets—for now, at least. Maybe.
Here’s a summary of what transpired in the past 36 hours regarding this bill:
It underwent several rewrites.
A hearing was held, during which medical and health policy experts expressed concerns about the bill’s “devastating” cuts to Medicaid, while Republican senators countered that the cuts weren't technically cuts at all. The first 20 minutes of the hearing were spent escorting protesters, many of whom had disabilities, out of the room.
A health care debate was hosted by CNN, where Senators Graham and Cassidy squared off against Bernie Sanders, the sponsor of a single-payer health care bill, and Amy Klobuchar.
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released their analysis of the Graham-Cassidy bill, stating that millions could lose their health insurance if the bill passed, though they were unable to provide an exact number due to time constraints.
Senator Collins, waiting for the CBO score, announced her decision to vote no on Graham-Cassidy. She became the third Republican senator to do so, following Rand Paul and John McCain. With only 52 Republican senators, the bill needed 50 votes to pass.
The scheduled vote for the Graham-Cassidy bill was officially called off today. Republican senators have now decided to shift their focus to tax reform.
What’s next? Well, it seems like the next step is speculation about when Congress might next attempt to push a Republican-only ACA repeal bill through the process. Perhaps sometime in 2018! Politico reports:
Here’s how it could play out: Although the Senate parliamentarian has ruled that the repeal effort under fiscal 2017 must end after September 30, Republicans could include reconciliation instructions for both health care and tax reform in the fiscal 2018 budget resolution that Congress must pass in order to unlock the fast-track procedural powers again. There may be some procedural obstacles, but one GOP aide mentioned on Monday that since the Finance Committee oversees about 95 percent of health care policy, 'it’s not like we couldn’t slip it in anyway.'
The Senate could also consider a bipartisan bill with minor adjustments aimed at stabilizing health care markets, and/or Bernie Sanders’s single-payer bill. To be continued...
