Promises, Promises, Promises
Seven years, 60 votes and Obamacare has still not been repealed or replaced.
This week, Republicans are hectically counting votes with their latest effort to gut Obamacare for the fourth time in three months.
Ask any Republican why they keep trying, and they’ll tell you, “That’s what we campaigned on. We’re merely trying to make good on our campaign promises.”
But passing bad legislation only to satisfy a pledge to your voters is reckless and potentially disastrous.
If Republicans promised en masse to rid the country of poverty, but to achieve that goal they passed a law that would allow for every poor American to be rounded up and dropped onto a deserted island, they would solve one problem, but create millions more.
According to many health care professionals, the latest Republican effort to pass, repeal and replace Obamacare (the Graham-Cassidy bill, named after Sens. Lindsey Graham and Louisiana’s Bill Cassidy) is just that problematic.
The American Heart Association, the March of Dimes, the American Diabetes Association, the American Medical Association, the American Psychiatric Association, the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) and the lobbying arm of the American Cancer Society are but a few of the more than a dozen health care providers and patient interest groups that have strongly come out against the bill.
Most are claiming that many of the protections for Americans under Obamacare would be in jeopardy if the Republicans get their way.
But Republicans are on a mission.
They don’t seem to care that there are many Americans with pre-existing conditions who might end up paying much higher premiums for their coverage if individual states dictate the terms of that coverage.
It doesn’t mean they’ll lose their coverage altogether – just that they might have to pay a lot more for it.
Meanwhile, in the White House, President Trump offered his two cents.
“I would not sign Graham-Cassidy if it did not include coverage of pre-existing conditions. It does! A great Bill. Repeal & Replace,” he tweeted.
But what he didn’t mention was that under that bill, states can do away with Obamacare’s ban on charging people more if they have pre-existing conditions.
I’d guess Trump hasn’t even read the bill.
Or, if he did, he really didn’t understand it.
Graham-Cassidy would do away with Obamacare’s premium subsidies and Medicaid expansion. It would roll those funds into one, smaller, pot – and then divvy up the pot and send it to individual states.
There are fears that millions of people might not be able to afford health insurance under the new plan.
All of this for a bill that didn’t surface until last week, when Republicans groused that Obamacare had been rushed through Congress, even though it took six months to pass it.
Some Republicans, like the latest bill’s co-author, Lindsey Graham, were highly critical about what was called the American Health Care Act of 2017, that had been introduced by Republicans in the U.S. House last spring.
(The House passed it, but it never made its way to the Senate)
To Graham, that proposal had been put together hastily.
“A bill – finalized yesterday, has not been scored, amendments not allowed, and 3 hours final debate – should be viewed with caution,” Graham tweeted on May 4th.
But now, that’s exactly what would have to happen if his own bill has any chance of getting through congress.
Because his bill won’t get scored by the Congressional Budget Office, there will be few, if any real amendments added to it — and there’ll be only limited debate on it, if it is to get through the Senate.
That’s because under budget rules, Republicans only have until Sept. 30 to pass the bill through the Senate. If the Sept. 30 deadline isn’t met, they’ll need 60 votes to pass it.
That’s highly unlikely since they’d need Democratic votes.
Edward A. Owens is a multi-Emmy Award winner, former reporter and anchor for Entertainment Tonight and 20-year TV news veteran. Email him at freedoms@bellatlantic.net.