Senate Republicans left a closed-door session on the draft healthcare legislation with many questions and some reservations about the bill that they are scheduled to vote on possibly as soon as next week.
The Republicans sat through five presentations on Thursday morning explaining the scope and impact of the long-awaited bill, the Better Care Reconciliation Act, which has drawn sharp criticism for the way it was drafted in secret by a group of 13 senators.
The mood in the room was “tense” and “interesting” Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) told a crowd of reporters who had jammed the halls of the Capitol.
One of the architects of the draft bill and chairman of the Finance Committee, Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) noted that a lot of members who attended the briefing had questions and there are still a number of details that will have to worked out to secure the 50 votes needed to pass the bill.
Hatch appeared optimistic that the Republicans will be able to rally the 50 votes despite some “misunderstandings” about the legislation from some members. He did not elaborate on what those were.
Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), who has been a critic of the way the bill was drafted in secret, said he and a number of his colleagues need more time to digest the bill and weigh its effect on constituents.
“I don’t think any of us can walk out and really speak clearly about everything it does,” he told reporters. “It’s a significant piece of legislation and people have a lot of questions and I think everybody [will be looking at it] in a really diligent way.”
See the full bill here.
Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), a former doctor, has expressed serious concerns about the American Health Care Act (ACHA), the House version of the healthcare bill.
Cassidy emerged from the meeting on Thursday morning saying he believes the Senate version is less “mean” than the ACHA. According to reports, President Trump described the House bill as “mean” during a June 13 meeting with a group of senators.
Specifically, Cassidy is heartened that the Senate bill could more effectively limit the costs of healthcare to older Americans, an issue he said was “problematic” in the House version. The ACHA allowed insurers to charge seniors up to five times as much as younger, healthier Americans.
Cassidy also noted that the Better Care Reconciliation Act is “much more limited in scope” than Obamacare. The bill the Senate is now considering deals primarily with Medicaid and tax credits.
Asked if the Senate would cast a vote by next week, Cassidy noted, “I think there will still be changes.”
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) was also an early skeptic of the AHCA. The draft bill released this morning is an improvement on the House bill, he told reporters. Specifically, it will not change Obamacare coverage for individuals with pre-existing conditions and will not alter Medicare. The House bill drew significant criticism for failing to protect individuals with pre-existing conditions and potentially undermining Medicare.
“I think they’re probably going to get a lot of push-back from people on the right in the House,” Graham said. “But I want to look at it in terms of [what it does for] South Carolina.”
Among the more contentious provisions of the House’s American Health Care Act (AHCA) is the phase-out of Medicaid expansion by 2020, a change that critics say amounts to major cuts to the state-run program. The Senate version slows the pace, phasing out Medicaid expansion by 2024.
According to freshman Lousiana Sen. John Kennedy, that timeline to taper the federal dollars going to the low-income health program is something that he can stand behind.
“[Medicaid] will grow with the rate of inflation, and that point I think … everybody should be able to support.”
Sen. Rounds of South Dakota is still holding out for additional changes. “There’s a lot of things in it I like. There are some thing in it that I think we can make better,” he told reporters, saying he wants to see the group market strengthened.
The timeline for a vote on the bill is still up in the air, according to a number of Republican senators who said there will likely be additional discussions in the coming days hashing out some of the more controversial parts of the bill.
Senate Democrats are still on the outskirts of the process. Minority Leader Chuck Schumer criticized the contents of the bill on the Senate floor on Thursday morning shortly after the text was made public calling the bill “heartless.” He argued the bill would “end Medicaid as we know it” and make deeper cuts to the state-run program than the House version.
Sen. Majority Leader and chief architect of the healthcare legislation Mitch McConnell got into a fiery exchange with Schumer, accusing him of criticizing a bill without having read the text. “The speech you just heard was about a bill he hasn’t seen,” McConnell said.
In a press briefing, Senate Democrats hit Republicans on their approach to the legislation, which they said has been secretive, rushed and has completely excluded Democrats.
“Republican leaders have done everything possible to prevent people from seeing their version of Trumpcare,” said Sen. Patty Murray (Wash.) the ranking Democrat on the committee that oversees healthcare. “There have been no hearings, no scrutiny, no public input.”
She charged that even the Republicans don’t know what is in the bill. “That’s what we’re objecting to.”
Schumer explained that if the bill is passed through a procedure known as reconciliation, the Senate could be limited to only ten hours of debate on the health care reform.
If the Better Care Reconciliation Act passes, it will be on entirely partisan lines, and many Republicans have accepted that as a hard fact.
“It’s much better than Obamacare,” Sen. David Perdue (R-Ga.) said, adding that “it’s much better than any deal we’ll negotiate … with our partners across the aisle, no matter what they say.”
The text of the 142-page bill was released online just before 11 a.m. and can be read online. The bill will end Obamacare taxes for individuals who do not buy insurance, gradually end Medicaid expansion, and provide $62 billion in subsidies to states to held individuals purchase healthcare.
