New Senate health care bill quickly runs into trouble

GOP leaders are urging senators to, at least, vote in favor of bill to begin debate. 

WASHINGTON — Republican leaders unveiled a new health care bill in their increasingly desperate effort to deliver on seven years of promises to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act. They immediately lost two key votes, leaving none to spare as the party’s own divisions put its top campaign pledge in serious jeopardy.

The reworked bill Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky, presented to fellow Republicans on Thursday aims to win conservatives’ support by letting insurers sell low-cost, skimpy policies. At the same time, he seeks to placate hesitant moderates by adding billions to combat opioid abuse and help consumers with skyrocketing insurance costs.

But it was not clear whether the Republican leader has achieved the delicate balance he needs after an embarrassing setback last month when he abruptly canceled a vote in the face of widespread opposition to a bill he crafted largely in secret.

Moderate Sen. Susan Collins of Maine told reporters she had informed McConnell she would be voting against beginning debate on the bill, citing in part cuts in the Medicaid health program for the poor and disabled. Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, who has repeatedly complained that McConnell’s efforts don’t amount to a full-blown repeal of Obamacare, also announced he was a “no.”

That means McConnell cannot lose any other Republican senators. With Democrats unanimously opposed in a Senate split 52-48 in favor of the GOP, he needs 50 votes, with Vice President Mike Pence breaking the tie, to get past a procedural hurdle and begin debate on the bill.

The showdown vote is set for next week, though McConnell could cancel again if he’s short of support. He and other GOP leaders are urging senators to at least vote in favor of opening debate, which would open the measure up to amendments. And GOP leaders express optimism that they are getting closer to a version that could pass the Senate.

“Now that members actually have paper in their hand they can look at what is likely to be very close to the final bill we’ll be voting on and move forward,” said Sen. Roy Blunt of Missouri said.

McConnell said the 172-page legislation is the senators’ opportunity to make good on years of promises.

“This is our chance to bring about changes we’ve been talking about since Obamacare was forced on the American people,” he said.

Many Republicans believe the party could face electoral catastrophe if it alienates GOP voters by failing get rid of the ACA after taking control of both chambers of Congress and the White House.

“It could be the biggest political broken promise in many years,” said conservative former Sen. Jim DeMint, former president of the Heritage Foundation, as he passed through the Capitol.

Throughout the day McConnell huddled in his office with holdouts, including Dean Heller of Nevada, the most endangered Senate Republican in next year’s midterms, Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia, Rob Portman of Ohio and John Hoeven of North Dakota.

The lawmakers wanted details and numbers on how the bill would affect rural and Medicaid-dependent people in their states. All had opposed McConnell’s earlier bill, but this time around several exited their meetings saying they were undecided and needed more time to evaluate the legislation.

Hoeven said of McConnell: “He’s asking everybody to work with him, and a lot of us are saying ‘yeah,’ and we’ve got more work to do.”

Like legislation earlier passed by the House after struggles of its own, the Senate bill would get rid of Obamacare’s mandates for individuals to buy insurance and for companies to offer it, repeal taxes and unwind the Medicaid expansion created by the Affordable Care Act. Analyses by the Congressional Budget Office have found the House bill and the earlier Senate version both would eliminate insurance coverage for more than 20 million people over the next decade.

The new bill contains language demanded by conservative Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas letting insurers sell plans with minimal coverage, as long as they also sell policies that meet strict coverage requirements set by Obama’s 2010 statute.

The retooled measure retains McConnell’s plan to phase out the extra money 31 states have used to expand Medicaid under Obama’s statute, and to tightly limit the overall program’s future growth.

The rewritten package would add $70 billion to the $112 billion McConnell originally sought that states could use to help insurers curb the growth of premiums and consumers’ other out-of-pocket costs. And it has an added $45 billion for states to combat the misuse of drugs like opioids.