President Donald Trump will sign the Graham-Cassidy health-care bill if it passes Congress, CNN first reported Tuesday. After weeks of silence on the bill, the White House is throwing its weight behind Republicans’ latest Obamacare health-care reform package, which would redirect federal funds…
President Donald Trump will sign the Graham-Cassidy health-care bill if it passes Congress, CNN first reported Tuesday.
After weeks of silence on the bill, the White House is throwing its weight behind Republicans’ latest Obamacare health-care reform package, which would redirect federal funds spent under Obamacare to the states in the form of block grants for health-care spending. While Trump attended the U. N. General Assembly, Vice President Pence traveled to Washington to announce the administration’s support for the package at the GOP Senate policy lunch.
The long-shot bill, which Senate leadership initially dismissed as a distraction, has been steadily gaining steam over the past week, with sponsors Lindsey Graham and Bill Cassidy saying they are close to 50 votes. Now, suddenly, the bill is the issue of the week for the Senate, as Republican leaders begin again to hope of repealing Obamacare before the Sept. 30 deadline to do so under budget reconciliation.
Until Tuesday, the White House was silent about the legislation, even after President Donald Trump urged congressional Republicans not to move on to other issues until they managed a health-care win. President Trump has not tweeted about or yet commented publicly on Graham-Cassidy.
Behind the scenes, however, the administration has been working to rally votes for the package, with Trump and Pence calling individual senators to urge their support.
As before, the fate of the health-care debate rests with Sens. Lisa Murkowski, Susan Collins, and John McCain. Any one of them voting against it would kill the bill, as Sen. Rand Paul has already announced his opposition to the package.
