Senate Republicans have gone back to the drawing board to get an Obamacare repeal bill they can pass.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., pulled the plug Tuesday on his Obamacare repeal bill, saying Republicans would resume talks to see whether they can get a bill they’ll agree upon.
No, the bill is not dead.
This is the moment to recall that the House had to pull its legislation from the floor in almost the exact same pattern — Republican leaders were not certain they would get enough GOP votes to pass it — and it took several weeks and several rounds of revisions before they could push the bill through .
The first step for McConnell and other Republican leaders is to get everybody in a room and figure out what it would take to get various factions on board. Moderates like Sen. Dean Heller of Nevada have argued that the cuts to Medicaid are too severe; perhaps McConnell can add enough Medicaid money to get Heller on board. Conservatives like Sen. Mike Lee of Utah wanted to see more flexibility for states to waive coverage requirements; perhaps there is a way to write this flexibility into the bill.
McConnell said he hopes to iron out some of these detail this week and then bring the bill up after the July Fourth recess.
Nope.
Democrats have said they would be willing to meet with Republicans to discuss changes to Obamacare, but only if Republicans give up on the idea of « repeal. »
McConnell said Tuesday he has no plans to begin talks with Democrats because « they’re not interested in participating in this. »
Trump is taking an active role in trying to get Republicans to agree on a bill and invited all of the GOP senators to the White House on Tuesday to talk about it. He was very active in negotiations over the House bill, and he may be able to push lawmakers to cut a deal.
But his public statements on the bill have been a vague. A week ago he tweeted that he was « very supportive » of the Senate bill…
… but he told a gathering of tech CEOs that the bill still needed « a little negotiation. »
On Monday, he seemed to suggest maybe Congress should just give up on passing a bill.
