WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump pressured Republicans Monday to approve the Senate’s wheezing health care bill, saying a showdown vote planned for this week is their “last chance to do the right thing” and erase the Obama law.
Trump’s prodding came a day before leaders say the Senate will vote on legislation shredding much of President Barack Obama’s health care law. Lacking the votes to push it through his chamber, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Republican from Kentucky, postponed one roll call last month and hasn’t yet announced exactly what version of the measure lawmakers would consider Tuesday.
Complicating McConnell’s hopes of drumming up last-minute support, Ohio GOP Gov. John Kasich said Monday it would be a mistake for the Senate to move ahead Tuesday “and force a one-sided deal that people in the U.S. are clearly against.” Kasich’s stance could make it harder for wavering Sen. Rob Portman, Republican from Ohio, who’s criticized the measure’s Medicaid cuts, to vote for the measure.
In his statement, Kasich panned the bill for a lack of “bipartisanship, transparency or open dialogue.” He said Congress should take no action on recrafting the nation’s health care system until it can “step back from political gamesmanship and come together with a workable, bipartisan plan.”
Portman and other Republican senators were also being pounded from the White House.
“Republicans have a last chance to do the right thing on Repeal & Replace after years of talking & campaigning on it,” Trump tweeted Monday.
Trump’s contentious tone toward members of his own party underscored the high stakes as he tries winning Republican votes for a goal the GOP has trumpeted since the statute’s 2010 enactment. He planned to make formal remarks on the health care legislation later Monday.
Characteristic of his scattershot effort on his party’s health care drive, Trump also spent the morning tweeting insults at Democrats, the news media and his own attorney general, Jeff Sessions, about their handling of investigations into his 2016 campaign’s possible collusion with Russia.
Republicans have a last chance to do the right thing on Repeal & Replace after years of talking & campaigning on it.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 24, 2017
On Sunday, the Senate GOP No. 3 leader said McConnell will decide soon on which health care bill to bring up for a vote, depending on ongoing discussions with GOP senators.
Sen. John Thune, Republican from South Dakota, sought to cast this week’s initial vote as important but mostly procedural, allowing senators to begin debate and propose amendments. But he acknowledged that senators should be able to know beforehand what bill they will be considering.
“That’s a judgment that Senator McConnell will make at some point this week before the vote,” Thune said, expressing his own hope it will be a repeal-and-replace measure.
Senate Republicans are considering legislation that would repeal and replace Obama’s law, and a separate bill that would simply repeal “Obamacare” with a two-year delay for implementation to give Congress more time to agree on a replacement.
Both versions encountered opposition from enough GOP senators to doom the effort, but McConnell is making a last-gasp attempt this week after Trump insisted that senators not leave town for the August recess without sending him some kind of health overhaul bill to sign.
In the Senate, Republicans hold a 52-48 majority. They can only afford to have one of their senators defect and still prevail on a health bill, assuming that Republican Sen. John McCain remains in Arizona, where he’s being treated for brain cancer. Democrats are standing united in opposition.
At least two Republican senators Sunday appeared to reaffirm their intention to vote against the procedural motion if it involved the latest version of the GOP’s repeal-and-replace bill.
Moderate Sen. Susan Collins of Maine said she continued to have concerns about reductions to Medicaid and criticized the Republican process, saying lawmakers were being unfairly kept in the dark. Under McConnell’s plan, 22 million more people would become uninsured by 2026, many of them Medicaid recipients. She wants to hold public hearings and work with Democrats.
Collins cited uncertainty about which version of the bill the Senate will consider and said, “I don’t think that’s a good approach to replacing legislation that affects millions of people.”
Conservative Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky said he would only support a repeal-only bill. That version would reduce government costs but lead to 32 million additional uninsured people over a decade. At least three senators including Collins have previously expressed opposition to that plan.
“The other alternative is the Senate leadership bill that doesn’t repeal Obamacare, is Obamacare light and is loaded with pork. … I’m not for that,” said Paul.
ALAN FRAM
