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UPDATED: Fri., July 14, 2017, 3:07 p.m.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Ky. leaves the Senate chamber on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday, July 13, 2017, after announcing the revised version of the Republican health care bill. The bill has been in jeopardy because of opposition from within the GOP ranks. ( (J. Scott Applewhite / Associated Press)

WASHINGTON President Donald Trump and other administration officials lobbied Republicans Friday from both sides of the Atlantic to keep the Senate GOPs reworked health care bill from crashing, with the president saying wavering senators must come through.

But the measure, culminating the GOPs seven years of pledging to repeal President Barack Obamas health care law, encountered turbulence from two influential Republican governors and the nations largest doctors group. That complicated Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnells task of preventing even a single additional GOP senator from rejecting the legislation, which would kill it.

After all of these years of suffering thru ObamaCare, Republican Senators must come through as they have promised! the president tweeted before departing Paris, where he attended Bastille Day ceremonies.

McConnell, R-Ky., refashioned the legislation to attract GOP votes, two weeks after retreating on an initial version that would have died for lack of Republican support. The new package added language letting insurers sell discount-priced policies with minimal coverage aimed at winning over conservatives, and revised funding formulas that would mean federal money for states including Louisiana and Alaska home to four GOP senators.

Fifty of the 52 Republican senators must back the bill in an initial vote McConnell plans for next week or, facing solid Democratic opposition, it will lose. GOP Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Kentuckys Rand Paul have said theyll vote no, leaving McConnell no wiggle room.

Trumps team tried winning over Republican Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval, whos said GOP proposals to cut the Medicaid health care program for low-income people would unacceptably hurt the state. Sen. Dean Heller, R-Nev., facing a difficult re-election battle next year, has taken the same stance, and Republicans believe one pathway to Hellers vote is through the popular governor.

Sandoval told the Associated Press that McConnells latest measure has Medicaid cuts that remained a big concern for me. He said the bill had money states could use to mitigate those reductions that could be a good thing, but said he needed more information.

The bill would halt the extra money Obamas law provides for states that expand Medicaid, which Nevada has used to add 200,000 beneficiaries to its program, and curtail its future growth.

Sandoval said he expected to meet privately with Vice President Mike Pence and Health Secretary Tom Price at governors meetings he is attending in Providence, Rhode Island. He said hed already heard from both men.

Further complicating McConnells effort, Ohio GOP Gov. John Kasich called the revised measure still unacceptable, largely because of its Medicaid cuts. Thats a concern also voiced by another Senate holdout, Ohio Republican Rob Portman.

Also weighing in was the American Medical Association, the physicians organization, which said Medicaid cuts and inadequate subsidies in the bill would lead to millions of Americans losing health insurance coverage.

Like legislation the House passed after its own struggles, the Senate bill would get rid of Obamas mandates for individuals to buy insurance and for companies to offer it and repeal many of its tax increases.

The rewritten package would add $70 billion to the $112 billion McConnell originally sought that states could use to help insurers curb the growth of consumers out-of-pocket costs. And it has an added $45 billion for states to combat the misuse of drugs like opioids.

McConnell has several factors working for him.

On his side is enormous pressure on Republicans whove campaigned on repealing Obamas law since its 2010 enactment. He faces few constraints about the bills contents from Trump, whose descriptions of what he wants have ranged between vague and contradictory. And he can craft the legislation to appeal to senators.

Underscoring that, the measure would change two formulas to funnel more money to states that expanded their Medicaid programs since late 2015 to additional people. Democrats said the revisions seemed particularly aimed at helping Louisiana, home to two GOP senators: Bill Cassidy and John Kennedy. Kennedy said the unfair treatment under McConnells original bill would have cost the state $2 billion.

The revision also seemed likely to help Montana and Alaska, represented by three Republican senators and one Democrat.

Also increased is money that would flow to some hospitals in states that chose not to expand Medicaid, which are largely run by Republicans. Chris Sloan of the consulting firm Avalere Health said the change would be a significant benefit to large states including Florida, Texas, Georgia and North Carolina.

The new bill would also set aside up to an additional $2 billion for helping insurers limit consumers out-of-pocket expenses in Alaska, home to two other Republican senators.

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Trump, administration press Republicans to back health bill - The Spokesman-Review

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump turned up the heat on Friday on fellow Republicans in the U.S. Senate to pass a bill dismantling the Obamacare law, but with their retooled healthcare plan drawing fire within the party even one more defection would doom it.

Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has planned for a vote next week on revised legislation, unveiled on Thursday, and he has his work cut out for him in the coming days to get the 50 "yes" votes needed for passage. Republicans control the Senate by a 52-48 margin and cannot afford to lose more than two from within their ranks because of united Democratic opposition, but two Republican senators already have declared opposition.

"After all of these years of suffering thru Obamacare, Republican Senators must come through as they have promised," Trump, who made gutting Obamacare one of his central campaign promises last year, wrote on Twitter from Paris, where he attended Bastille Day celebrations.

The top U.S. doctors' group, the American Medical Association, on Friday called the new bill inadequate and said more bipartisan collaboration is needed in the months ahead to improve the delivery and financing of healthcare. Hospital and medical advocacy groups also have criticized the bill.

"The revised bill does not address the key concerns of physicians and patients regarding proposed Medicaid cuts and inadequate subsidies that will result in millions of Americans losing health insurance coverage," AMA President Dr. David Barbe said, referring to the government insurance program for the poor and disabled.

A major test for McConnell's legislation expected early next week is an analysis by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, which last month forecast that the prior version of the bill would have resulted in 22 million Americans losing insurance over the next decade.

A day after that CBO analysis was issued, McConnell postponed a planned vote on the legislation because of a revolt within his own party, including moderates and hard-line conservatives.

While the bill's prospects may look precarious, the same could have been said of healthcare legislation that ultimately was passed by the House of Representatives. Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan called off a vote in March in the face of a rebellion involving the disparate factions of the party but managed to coax enough lawmakers to back it and engineered narrow approval on May 4.

Vice President Mike Pence sought to shore up support among the nation's governors at a meeting in Rhode Island, but a key Republican governor, Ohio's John Kasich, came out strongly against the revised bill, saying its Medicaid cuts were too deep and it does too little to stabilize the insurance market.

Kasich's opposition could put pressure on Rob Portman, a Republican senator from Ohio, who has not yet taken a position on the bill.

If the current Senate legislation collapses, some lawmakers have raised the possibility of seeking bipartisan legislation to fix parts of Obamacare but leaving intact the structure of the Affordable Care Act, Democratic former President Barack Obama's signature legislative achievement, commonly known as Obamacare.

"There are changes that need to be made to the law," Dick Durbin, the No. 2 Senate Democrat, told MSNBC, citing "a bipartisan appetite to tackle this issue."

Moderate Susan Collins and conservative Rand Paul already oppose the revised Senate bill. Other Republican senators have either expressed concern or remained noncommittal, including Portman, Mike Lee, Shelley Moore Capito, John McCain, Dean Heller, John Hoeven, Lisa Murkowski, Jeff Flake, Ben Sasse, Cory Gardner, Todd Young and Thom Tillis. Republican Senators Lindsey Graham and Bill Cassidy floated an alternative plan.

The new version was crafted to satisfy the Republican Party's various elements, including moderates worried about Americans who would be left without medical coverage and hard-line conservatives who demand less government regulation of health insurance.

A provision designed to appeal to conservatives would let insurers sell cheap, bare-bones insurance policies that would not have to cover broad benefits mandated under Obamacare.

The bill retained certain Obamacare taxes on the wealthy that the earlier version would have eliminated, a step moderates could embrace. But it kept the core of the earlier bill, including ending the expansion of Medicaid that was instrumental in enabling Obamacare to expand coverage to 20 million people, and restructuring that social safety-net program.

John Thune, a member of the Senate Republican leadership, said in order to complete work on the bill by the end of next week, Senate leaders would have to try to formally begin debate on Tuesday or Wednesday, a move that requires a majority vote.

Reporting by Susan Cornwell and David Alexander; Writing by Will Dunham; Editing by Bernadette Baum and Jonathan Oatis

Original post:
One more Republican defection would doom Senate healthcare bill - Reuters

WASHINGTON (AP) House Republicans are moving ahead with their long-overdue budget blueprint, even as divisions between moderates and conservatives over cutting programs like food stamps threaten passage of the measure.

Passing the measure is a prerequisite to GOP efforts to overhaul the tax code, a top priority of President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans. Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., said Friday the House Budget Committee will vote next week on the plan, which would spend far more money next year than Trump has proposed.

Earlier divisions have been resolved between GOP defense hawks and the party's tough-on-spending wing. The Pentagon emerged a big winner with a $30 billion increase over Trump's budget, but divisions remain between tea party forces and Republican moderates.

The current holdup involves whether to use Washington's arcane budget process to force cuts to mandatory programs, such as food stamps or pension benefits for federal workers. Tea party lawmakers are demanding spending cuts from mandatory programs to make up for increased spending on the Pentagon.

House Republicans expect Senate Democrats to press for increases in nondefense spending, and if those are factored in, the GOP's current plan for savings looks pretty paltry.

"Give me a break," said Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio.

But moderates, some of whom cast dangerous votes for the GOP's unpopular health measure, are uneasy about voting for further cuts.

"If you throw in food stamps and other mandatory programs, then you set yourself up for the argument that you're cutting taxes for businesses and wealthy people while you're removing eligibility for people on food stamps," said Rep. Charlie Dent, R-Pa.

McCarthy also says GOP leaders are pondering a move to bundle a separate $1.2 trillion package of 12 spending bills into a single omnibus spending bill for a lengthy floor debate at the end of the month. Typically work on the spending bills follows passage of the budget measure. The budget, which was supposed to pass in April, is so far behind that the rival Appropriations Committee is almost finished with writing its 12 bills.

But floor action on the spending measures will be tricky since Democrats are opposed to many of them.

"We could go all 12," McCarthy in a brief interview outside his Capitol office. Or, McCarthy said, the spending bills could be wrapped into several smaller bundles. "We'll make that decision next week."

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Top House Republican says budget plan to move ahead - STLtoday.com

The majority-Republican House of Representatives declared Friday that climate change is a national security threat while passing a defense spending bill, according to reports. It's a stunning turn for a party that hasfor along timedistanced itself from climate science in favor of business interests.

The $696 billion bill, which sets up the militarys 2018 fiscal year budget, passed by a vote of 344-81. Italso includes provisions that call for better oversight of the militarys cyberoperations and knocks back President Donald Trumps attempt to close military bases, the Associated Press reported.

The surprising section callsglobal warming a direct threat to the national security and instructs the Pentagon to create a report on how climate change could affect the military. It asks for a list of 10 bases that could be susceptible to phenomena such as increased flooding and rising oceans.

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Republicans did at one time appearready to tackle the contentious issue of climate change, when SenatorJohn McCain of Arizona secured the partys presidential nomination in 2008, according to The New York Times. McCains support for doing so included an ad that quoted him calling out former President George W. Bush on the issue and saying he had sounded the alarm on global warming.

Since then, however,the party has scaled back such supporteven if many Republicansprivately say they believe climate change is real.

Most Republicans still do not regard climate change as a hoax, White Ayres, a Republican strategist,told the Times last month. But the entire climate change debate has now been caught up in the broader polarization of American politics.

In some ways, Ayres continues, its become yet another of the long list of litmus-test issues that determine whether or not youre a good Republican.

Its become especially difficult for Republicans to budge on the issue due to President Donald Trumps stance and recent decisions. The president put Scott Pruitt, who haslong advocated against climate scientists and environmentalists, in charge of the Environmental Protection Agency, andon June 1, Trump withdrew the U.S. from the Paris climate accord, a multilateral effort meant to curb carbon emissions around the world.

But the defense bill could also, in part, be considered a win for the president, who has said he wants a strong military. The House approved a defense budget that is $30 billion more than Trump had originally asked for, but in order for it to pass, Congress will have to find a way around 2011s Budget Control Act, which calledfor $487 billion in defense spending cuts over 10 years.

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Climate Change a 'National Security Threat,' Republican-Led House Declares in Defense Bill Vote - Newsweek

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MSNBC's Joy Reid said on Thursday that President Donald Trump can make Republicans "literally accept anything."

Appearing as a guest on "All In With Chris Hayes," Reid explained that Trump saw trends in the GOP and took advantage of it.

"This is a Republican Party that's been built on resentment and a sense of victimhood, a sense of persecution - almost a persecution complex - for more than 40 years, almost 50 years, going back to the dawn of the Civil Rights movement when they felt persecuted by the world," Reid said.

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She said that Trump "gets that" and "gets them," and that's why he can make Republicans "literally accept anything."

"And not only will the voters, so will the elected officials," Reid continued. "He's cowed senators, members of Congress. He has cowed the officialdom of the Republican Party. He's cowed the Speaker of the House."

She said that's been made clear by the Republican non-response to reports about Donald Trump Jr.'s meeting with a Russian lawyer.

"They all are now for collusion," she concluded.

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MSNBC Host Joy Reid: Republican Party Is Built on 'Victimhood,' 'Resentment' - Fox News