If you thought the Republican effort to repeal Obamacare, and take health insurance away from millions of Americans, was dead, then you are wrong. Republican senators Cassidy (Louisiana) and Graham (S. Carolina) have come up with a new plan -- and this one might be the worst one yet.Their new plan eliminates the federal insurance subsidies, and federal medicaid payments. Instead, it sends block grants to each state for that state to come up with their own health plan. It also lowers the amount of money that the states that expanded Medicaid will get, and raises the amount the states that didn't expand Medicaid will get.
This is an admission by Washington Republicans that they are incapable of coming up with a plan to provide Americans with health insurance, so they are punting the ball to the individual states. You can bet the Republican states will continue to deny heal insurance to many of their citizens, while Democratic states will have to drop many from their insurance programs (or increase their state budgets to cover them). The plan also gives states the right to petition to remove any of Obamacare's requirements -- like coverage for pre-existing conditions.
This is a very bad plan, and will undoubtably raise significantly the number of Americans without any health insurance. Can it pass? Maybe. About 48 of the 52 Republicans have said they'll vote for it according to Cassidy. He and Graham needs two more votes. Rand Paul (Kentucky) has already said he would vote against it (because he wants a repeal with no replacement). That means it's down to Murkowski (Alaska), Collins (Maine), and McCain (Arizona). If two of those three vote for the bill, it will have 50 votes, and Pence will break the tie to pass it.
The GOP has until the end of this month to pass the bill. After that, they'll have to start all over (and that means it couldn't come up again until at least well into next year.
Frankly, I don't understand why the Republicans are doing this. They could have moved on to other issues (tax cuts, immigration, infrastructure, etc.) and maybe gotten some people to swallow their lies. But passing this bill, which is certain to take insurance away from millions will just hurt them in the 2018 election -- and may hurt state GOP governments also.
They have two weeks to get the bill passed. Millions of Americans will be holding their breath.
