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Sen. Rand PaulRand PaulThe Hill's 12:30 Report Senate heads to new healthcare vote with no clear plan Overnight Healthcare: CBO predicts 22M would lose coverage under Senate ObamaCare replacement MORE (R-Ky.) is opening the door to helping GOP leadership get a healthcare bill over a key procedural hurdle.

The Kentucky Republican said on Thursday that he would support the motion to proceed to the House-passed healthcare bill, which is being used as a vehicle for any action, if he could get a deal on amendments.

"If they want my vote, they have to at least agree that we're going to at least have a vote on clean repeal," Paul told reporters.

"I think they're pretty equal in support. Let's do a random selection. Let's have three or four of them, put them in random order, the first day, equal billing. I think that's a compromise. I'm willing to get on the bill," he said.

Senators are expected to hold a procedural vote on Tuesday.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnellMitch McConnellParliamentarian deals setback to GOP repeal bill OPINION | How Democrats stole the nation's lower federal courts Flight restrictions signal possible August vacation for Trump MORE (R-Ky.) will need the support of at least 50 GOP senators to take up the House bill and let senators offer amendments, including clean repeal, the Better Care Reconciliation Act or other proposals.

Three GOP senators have said they would not take up the bill if it's to proceed to a repeal-only proposal. Paul and GOP Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) do not support the Senate GOP repeal-and-replace plan.

Paul is widely viewed as one of the most entrenched"no" votes within the GOP caucus on healthcare. If leadership is able to win him over, it could bolster their chances to at least debate if not ultimately pass healthcare legislation.

McConnell's math is even narrower with Sen. John McCainJohn McCainSen. Flake's GOP challenger: McCain should resign The Hill's 12:30 Report Armed Services leaders appoint strategy panel members MORE (R-Ariz.), who announced on Wednesday night that he had been diagnosed with brain cancer, out of Washington. It's unclear when he will return.

With McCain absent and all other 99 senators voting, McConnell can only afford to lose one GOP senator.

Paul stressed that he was not yet on board with voting "yes" on the initial hurdle, adding that there has been "resistance" to his idea.

If the Senate is able to take up the House bill any senator will be able to offer an amendment under an hours-long "vote-a-rama," but Paul said he wanted a guarantee his amendment wouldn't get buried in a "four in the morning" vote.

"Up front we have a vote on clean repeal, and maybe BRCA, and maybe Collins-Cassidy. I think the major proposals could be put at the very front. We debate them on the first day," he said.

GOP leadership signaled that they might not know what the ultimate outcome will be, repeal-only or repeal-and-replace, until after they get on the House bill.

"Asking what the first amendment is going to be actually misses the point, because anybody that's got a better idea can offer that and nobody can stop them," said Sen. John CornynJohn CornynSenators who have felt McCain's wrath talk of their respect for him Senate heads to new healthcare vote with no clear plan McCain absence adds to GOP agendas uncertainty MORE (R-Texas).

Link:
Rand Paul opens door to backing healthcare bill on key hurdle - The Hill (blog)

Earlier in the week, it looked like the Senate healthcare bill -- the Better Care Reconciliation Act (BCRA) -- was dead and buried. That very well may still end up being the case, but perhaps rumors of the proposal's death have been premature. According to multiple reports, Republican Senators are still in talks to revive the effort, with some signs of incremental progress starting to emerge. It sounds like developments are still quite some distance away from a House-style bounce-back, but it still sounds like marginal progress. First, Rand Paul -- who's faced some heat for his at-times contradictory intransigence -- appears willing to throw an important procedural bone to his fellow Kentuckian, Mitch McConnell:

Additional details from The Hill:

This strikes me as constructive and fair. Rather than debating nothing, upper chamber Republicans would consider a number of options, including (presumably) a finalized version of the still-evolving BCRA. Speaking of which, a new CBO score of the bill didn't result in too many changes -- people are again seizing on it to perpetuate the "22 million lose coverage" myth -- with one potentially-significant exception. McConnell has opted to leave a few more Obamacare taxes in place, freeing up more on-paper dollars to address concerns raised by moderate holdouts:

This appears to confirm whispers about GOP leaders' next move, first reported earlier in the week:

In a bold move to revive their healthcare bill, Senate Republican leaders are getting ready to propose giving $200 billion in assistance to states that expanded Medicaid, according to a person familiar with internal Senate negotiations. The huge sum would be funded by leaving in place ObamaCares net investment income tax and its Medicare surtax on wealthy earners, according to the source briefed on the proposalThe source said the aid would be targeted primarily at Medicaid expansion states, adding it would be distributed on the back end of the bills timeline, when the legislation would phase out the generous federal contribution for expanded Medicaid enrollment a central pillar of ObamaCare. The goal is winning the support of wavering moderate Republicans who will make or break the legislation...

On one hand, this move could pay double dividends. It would help assuage centrists who are worried about the (needed and fair) Medicaid reforms, while also eliminating two "tax cuts" (really reversals of tax increases) that Democrats have argued are sweetheart deals for the rich. On the other hand, with Paul still almost certainly in the "no" camp on final passage, joining at least Susan Collins and Mike Lee, McConnell is stallion grave danger of falling short of the requisite 50 votes -- a challenge made more difficult by John McCain's indefinite absence. Someone like Mike Lee's vote is likely essential for the legislation to have any chance of passage. How does greasing moderates' skids with more tax dollars help attract skeptical conservatives? Don't they need policy sweeteners, too? Ed Morrissey addressed this 'see-saw' problem yesterday:

That may appeal to the moderates, but the conservatives wont like it at all. They want the savings to go toward tax reform, which the savings from necessary Medicaid reforms will help buffer. While there is enough deficit improvement from these reforms to allow for horse-trading at this level, its about all McConnell can afford to give up while still qualifying the BCRA under reconciliation, and it could complicate the tax-reform effort that is next on the Republican agenda. Its tough to imagine Mike Lee and Ted Cruz coming along for this buyoff, let alone Rand Paul and if they dont, then the whole effort is pointless.

Cruz seems willing to play ball so long as his amendment survives, but Lee broke ranks on this front a few nights ago. Winning him over is just as crucial as bringing Capito or Heller into the fold. Perhaps if the chips are down and the Texan is satisfied with imperfect compromises, he can convince his Utah ally to hold his nose and pass something that improves upon the failing Obamacare status quo. Step one is getting onto the bill, which is by no means a foregone conclusion at all, even with Paul's concession. With votes supposedly scheduled for next Tuesday, let's stand by for updates. I'll leave you with this brutal takedown of baseless anti-BCRA propaganda offered by a former top Obama healthcare official. Cynical lies or revealing ignorance? Take your pick:

Read the original post:
Movement: Rand Paul Now Open to Motion to Proceed, McConnell Adds Medicaid Funding to Woo Moderates - Townhall

The greatest trick any politician can pull off is to get his self-interest and his principles in perfect alignment. As Thomas More observed in Robert Bolt's "A Man for All Seasons," "If we lived in a State where virtue was profitable, common sense would make us good, and greed would make us saintly."

Which brings me to Sen. Rand Paul, the GOP's would-be Man for All Seasons. Paul emerged from the smoldering debris of the Republican health care-reform train wreck as a figure of high libertarian principle, the shining "no" vote on any compromise that came short of full repeal.

"Look, this is what we ran on for four elections," Paul told Neil Cavuto of Fox News. "Republicans ran four times and won every time on repeal Obamacare, and now they're going to vote to keep it. Disappointing."

I found many of Paul's arguments and complaints entirely persuasive on the merits. But there have been times when I had to wonder if the merits were all that was driving him.

Was it just a coincidence that the bill was terribly unpopular in his home state of Kentucky, where more than one in five Kentuckians are on Medicaid?

This is the problem. When touting your principles is a politically expedient way of avoiding accountability, it's hard to tell whether principles or expedience is in the driver's seat. But not impossible.

Paul learned politics on the knee of his father, Ron Paul, a longtime Texas congressman and irrepressible presidential candidate. In the House, the elder Paul earned the nickname "Dr. No" because he voted against nearly everything on the grounds that it wasn't constitutional or libertarian enough.

"I'm absolutely for free trade, more so than any other member of the House," he told National Review's John Miller in 2007. "But I'm against managed trade."

So Paul opposed the Central American Free Trade Agreement and all other trade deals, not on Trumpian protectionist grounds but in service to his higher libertarian conscience, which, in a brilliant pas de deux, landed him in the protectionist position anyway.

Ron Paul loved earmarks. He'd cram pork for his district into must-pass spending bills like an overstuffed burrito and then vote against them in the name of purity, often boasting that he never approved an earmark or a spending bill.

In 2006, Republicans proposed legislation to slow the growth of entitlements by $40 billion over five years. Democrats, as usual, screamed bloody murder about Republican heartlessness and voted against it. And so did Ron Paul on the grounds the reform didn't go far enough. Man, that sounds familiar.

Now I can't say for sure that Rand Paul is carrying on the family tradition. He is different from his dad in many ways.

And yet: Every time health-care proceedings moved one step in Paul's direction, he seemed to move one step back. Sen. Ted Cruz offered an amendment that would open up the market for more flexible and affordable plans, like Paul wanted. No good, Paul told Fox's Chris Wallace. Those plans would still be in the "context" of the Obamacare mandates.

"My idea always was to replace it with freedom, legalize choice, legalize inexpensive insurance, allow people to join associations to buy their insurance," Paul said.

Sounds good. Except a provision for exempting associations from Obamacare mandates was already in the bill.

Paul insists he's sympathetic to the GOP's plight and its need to avoid a midterm catastrophe. (It would look awful if the party did nothing on health care at all.) His solution? Just repeal Obamacare now, and work on a replacement later. "I still think the entire 52 of us could get together on a more narrow, clean repeal," he told Wallace.

That sounds like a constructive idea, grounded in principle.

And yet: That's what GOP leaders wanted to do back in January. And one senator more than any other fought to stop them, and even successfully lobbied the White House to change course and do repeal-and-replace simultaneously. Guess who?

"If Congress fails to vote on a replacement at the same time as repeal," Paul wrote back then, "the repealers risk assuming the blame for the continued unraveling of Obamacare. For mark my words, Obamacare will continue to unravel and wreak havoc for years to come."

In the wake of the Senate bill's collapse this week, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell says he's all for a clean repeal, and so does Rand Paul. For now.

Jonah Goldberg is a senior editor of National Review. Email him at goldbergcolumn@gmail.com.

Excerpt from:
Rand Paul elusive on health care: Jonah Goldberg - GoErie.com

Republican Sen. Rand Paul sided with President Trump on Thursday after the commander-in-chief criticized Attorney General Jeff Sessions decision to recuse himself from the Russia investigation.

Paul, R-Ky., tweeted Thursday morning:

I agree with @realDonaldTrump, his Attorney General should not have recused himself over reported incidental contacts with Russian officials.

The tweet comes after the president told The New York Times that the attorney generals recusal was very unfair to the president.

How do you take a job and then recuse yourself? Trump said, slamming Sessions. If he would have recused himself before the job, I would have said, Thanks. Jeff, but Im not going to take you.'

The libertarian-leaning Paul went on to take a shot at Sessions over a separate policy move a day earlier -- tweeting his concerns about the DOJ's shift on what's known as asset forfeiture.

SESSIONS OPENS DOOR FOR POLICE TO SEIZE ASSETS, FACES GOP PUSHBACK

What Im most concerned about though is the Attorney Generals actions yesterday to push forward with federal asset forfeiture, Paul tweeted.

He added, Asset forfeiture is an unconstitutional taking of property without trial. Its wrong and I call on the AG and Administration to stop.

Pauls comments come after Sessions ordered the expansion of the governments ability to seize suspects propertya move that put him at odds with Republicans who have slammed the practice as a violation of civil rights.

Sessions touted the use of asset forfeiture as a key tool for law enforcement and said it weakens criminal organizations and the cartel.

Fox News Barnini Chakraborty contributed to this report.

Brooke Singman is a Reporter for Fox News. Follow her on Twitter at @brookefoxnews.

Read more:
Rand Paul sides with Trump on Sessions slam - Fox News

The goal is to remove what critics of the criminal justice system call an unfair disadvantage for poor people and people of color, who reportedly pay disproportionately higher amounts for bail.

Nationally, African American men pay 35 percent higher money bail amounts than white men, and Hispanic men pay 19 percent higher money bail amounts than white men, part of the Harris-Paul bill reads. The individuals who would be exempt from bail are described as low-risk individuals awaiting criminal trials.

The bill continues:

Money bail systems have resulted in disparate harms to poor people and communities of 12 color. Studies have shown that African American 13 and Hispanic defendants are more likely to be detained pretrial than white defendants and less likely to be able to post money bail so they can be released. Moreover, race and money bail amounts are significantly correlated.

The concern is that individuals earning lower wages are not able to pay bail, which could result in them losing their jobs, having their cars towed, and possibly losing their children.

Critics and opponents of the legislation include bail bonds companies and public safety organizations.

Harris, in a written statement announcing the bill, reportedlysaid, In our country, whether you stay in jail or not is wholly determined by whether youre wealthy or not and thats wrong. We must come together to reform a bail system that is discriminatory, wasteful, and fails to keep our communities safe.

Americans deserve fair and equal treatment under the law regardless of how much money is in their pockets or how many connections they have, Paul said, according to theSan Francisco Chronicle.

According toBay Area public radio station KQED, Harris and Pauls bill estimates that 450,000 people are incarcerated in the U.S. without having been convicted of a crime, and while awaiting trial.

The bill seeks to distribute$10 million between stateand tribal court systems in order to replace the use of bail with risk-based decision making that includes objective, research-based, and locally-validated assessment tools that do not result in unwarranted disparities.

In April, Duane Dog Chapman, known for his show Dog the Bounty Hunter appeared in the Assembly Public Safety Committee hearing to testify against similar legislation.

Adelle Nazarian is a politics and national security reporter for Breitbart News. Follow her onFacebookandTwitter.

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Read more:
Rand Paul Teams Up With Kamala Harris for Bail Reform - Breitbart News