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WASHINGTON Unable to find enough support to advance their health care bill, Senate Republicans are delaying a vote on the proposal this week as they try to cut new deals that will bring conservative and moderate holdouts on board.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) was forced to put off the vote on Tuesday after a small but dedicated cross section of his GOP conference expressed discomfort with moving ahead. McConnell can only lose two Republicans in his 52-member conference, and Sen. Dean Heller (R-Nev.) and Susan Collins (R-Maine) have both strongly suggested they will vote against the bill. Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) has also announced his opposition, but leaders still consider him gettable, two senior GOP aides said.

Lee has teamed up with Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Rand Paul (R-Ky.) in trashing the bill for not lowering premiums or repealing enough of the Affordable Care Act, otherwise known as Obamacare. With only two votes to lose, McConnell knows he needs all three to support the bill; otherwise, hes stuck trying to flip Heller or Collins not an impossible task, but an unlikely one, given their statements on the bill at this point.

The problem for McConnell is that Paul seems just as dedicated to opposing the bill, calling itterrible Monday night and saying it would be worse to pass a bad bill than no bill at all.

That opposition coupled with concerns from Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), who has expressed reservations about moving so fast, and from a number of other senators whose support for the legislation appears shaky at best forced McConnell to take more time to whip the bill and work out deals.

Every time you get one bullfrog in the wheelbarrow, another one jumps out, Senate GOP Whip John Cornyn (R-Texas) told reporters Tuesday.

McConnell met with one of those holdouts, Cruz, on Tuesday morning to discuss two proposals one that would allow insurers to offer plans that dont comply with Obamacare regulations, and another that would expand the use of health savings accounts.

That first proposal, which Cruz and other conservatives see as the path toward lower premiums, would effectively let insurers discriminate against people with pre-existing conditions and charge people more for services like maternity care. Its an amendment that moderates would almost certainly oppose.

But McConnell is hoping he can use some of the extra money that the Congressional Budget Office said his bill would save and put it toward a different amendment to shore up Medicaid slightly, after the CBO said the program would suffer a $772 billion cut over the next 10 years.

The bills Medicaid cuts alone are giving some senators more pause. Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), who seemed to be on board with the legislation after months of opposition, is again sounding unsettled.

He told reporters on Tuesday that he wants more help for middle-income seniors who would face huge premium increases under the bill. (The CBO predicted that a 64-year-old making $56,800 who has a standard plan would see his or her premiums jump from $6,800 to $20,500.) And Cassidy said he had some specific concerns related to how the Medicaid expansion had affected his states baseline budget that he needs clarity on.

Cassidy wouldnt say how he would vote on a motion to proceed if McConnell were to schedule one.

But McConnell didnt schedule one. Instead, he announced that the Senate wouldnt take action, as promised, before the July Fourth recess.

Its an ongoing discussion, McConnell told reporters on Tuesday. And members want several of them want more time. We have a number of different discussions going on. Theyve been going on for 6 weeks now. They continue.

SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images

After McConnell announced the delay, Republicans began immediately jockeying for a better negotiating position. Sen. Jerry Moran (R-Kan.) tweeted that the bill did not have his support and that he looked forward to taking a step back and letting the full legislative process work.

Sens. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) and Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.V.) issued a joint statement opposing the bill because it didnt do enough to address the nations opioid epidemic. And Paul, who had met with President Donald Trump earlier in the day, tweeted that Trump was open to making the bill better. Is Senate leadership? he asked.

With McConnell unable to hit his own deadline, the Kentucky Republican was asked Tuesday if Trump would now be taking a larger role.

We always anticipated the president would be very important in getting us to a conclusion, McConnell answered. After all, under our system, hes the man with a signature.

But McConnell continued to say that engaging Trump in the early stages would have candidly, kind of been a waste of his time, and he said Republicans needed to get farther down the path so Trump could help close the deal. And were delaying the process so that we can close those remaining issues, he said.

With or without those remaining issues, Trump is clearly taking a larger role. After meeting with Paul, Trump dispatched his chief of staff, Reince Priebus, and his press secretary, Sean Spicer, to meet with Republicans. Vice President Mike Pence is also meeting with senators later Tuesday night.

And the hammer may soon be coming down, too. A pro-Trump super PAC has already been hitting Heller for his announced opposition, whileTrump has shown a willingness to knock Republican lawmakers on Twitter much like he did when the House version of the bill stalled.

That pressure could eventually motivate senators, particularly Republicans like Cruz who need the GOP bases support in the upcoming 2018 elections.

But it could also backfire.

Later in the afternoon, Trump hosted a group of Republican senators at the White House. Flanked by critics like Collins and Heller, Trump urged senators to repeal Obamacare, which he said was experiencing a meltdown. He claimed the conference was close to passing a bill, and asserted that Republicans had as many as 52 or 50 votes a characterization directly contradicted by the decision to delay the vote this week, and by common sense.

If we dont get it done, its just going to be something that were not going to like and thats OK, the president added.

Trump appears to have little handle on the policy or political situation, and hes trying to convince senators to take a leap of faith when most evidence suggests its not in the interests of many states or voters to pass this legislation.

Thats particularly true in Alaska, where Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R) continues to sit on the fence.

Joshua Roberts/Reuters

Murkowski has very specific concerns about how Alaska would be affected by the bill, and she isnt up for re-election until 2022. Trying to pressure her into voting for the health care plan isnt likely to work not when she has such specific and major issues. And forcing her to draw a line on the bill or against Trump may end up sinking the legislation.

One easy fault line would be Planned Parenthood funding. Murkowski is already working with Collins on crafting an amendment that would restore funding for Planned Parenthood, which the GOP bill would cut off for one year. Forcing her to make her support conditional on that amendment would likely either cost Republicans her support, or cost the support of a handful of conservatives. The same could be said of protections for people with pre-existing conditions, which Murkowski wants to keep and conservatives want to gut.

And again, that is McConnells struggle. Every concession he accepts from moderates could imperil the support of conservatives, and vice-versa. Ultimately, one or both sides of the conference will be unhappy with the legislation, and McConnell (with the help of Trump, perhaps) will have to convince Republicans to just accept the compromise.

As for the delay, hardly anyone took it to mean the bill was dead. House GOP leadership already showed how quickly these proposals can come back to life and how delays can even be useful. Part of the reason House Republicans were successful in passing their bill was that opposition cooled the month after House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) called off a vote, with Democrats blindsided that moderates and conservatives had actually struck a deal.

In that spirit, Senate Democrats stopped short of taking a victory lap on Tuesday after the delay was announced. Instead, they continued rallies on the Capitol steps, holding up photos of constituents who would be adversely affected by the GOP proposal.

Were going to fight this bill tooth and nail, and we have a darned good chance of defeating it, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said. The Republicans cannot excise the rotten core at the center of their health care bill.

More here:
Senate Republicans May Be Down On Health Care, But They're Not Out - HuffPost

By David C. Barker and Christopher Jan Carman By David C. Barker and Christopher Jan Carman June 27 at 5:00 AM

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) and the GOP leadership are scrambling this week to corral 50 out of 52 Republican votes for an historically unpopular health-care bill. Why did so many House Republicans already vote for a bill that large majorities in every state detest? And why are their Senate colleagues considering walking the same plank, given the electoral risk?

In our book, Representing Red and Blue: How the Culture Wars Change the Way Citizens Speak and Politicians Listen, we find that thumbing ones nose at public opinion might spell trouble for elected Democrats. But Republicans typically have much less to fear, because most GOP voters dont expect or even want their representatives to follow the public will.

Republicans prefer trustee representation

According to several years of nationally representative survey data, about two-thirds of Americans believe that elected representatives should try their hardest to give the people what they want. Remarkably, however, Republican voters are between 20 and 30 points less likely than their Democratic counterparts to agree. Moreover, people represented by a Republican member of Congress are almost 20 percentage points less likely to perceive their member as behaving that way, regardless of their own party identification.

[Trumps travel ban is built on a law meant to protect the U.S. from Jews and communists]

Its not as nefarious as it sounds. Republican voters, whether they consciously realize it or not, are more comfortable with what political scientists call trustee-style representation, whereby representatives use their own principled judgment when casting votes. In contrast, the delegate style binds legislators to constituent demands. Many Republicans voters and lawmakers alike cherish their principles more than they do the whims of a mostly uninformed and inattentive mass public.

Why the partisan divide?

As with so much, the U.S. culture wars drive this partisan representation divide.

First, members of groups that comprise the Republican base seem especially averse to delegate-style public overtures. Even after taking account of other forces that might shape citizens views of lawmakers, we found that traditionalistic Christians are 23 points less likely than seculars to say that representatives should give the people what they want. Instead, they should stick to their principles, no matter what the polls might say.

Second, those most inclined to favor traditional power relationships in the home or to oppose egalitarian causes are 32 and 29 points less likely, respectively, to respect public opinion in this way.

[Is democracy on the decline? Not as much as some pundits want you to believe.]

Third, when Republicans think their representatives are getting soft, they try to hold them accountable. In surveys, we asked respondents to tell us not only what kind of representation they wanted but also the kind they thought they were actually getting. Democrats proved 23 points less supportive of their representatives when they perceived them paying too little attention to public opinion. In contrast, Republicans were up to 50 percentage points less supportive when they saw them paying too much attention.

Fourth, judging from legislative roll-call data since 1985, Republicans in Congress have been considerably less likely than Democrats to follow their constituents policy preferences a tendency that has grown over time. We found that the ideological convergence between voters and legislators is more than three times greater among Democratic legislators than among Republicans.

[This is what Americans will really dislike about the House Trumpcare bill]

Heres what that means for the promise to repeal and replace Obamacare

These stark partisan differences suggest that Republicans could well buck broad public opinion and vote for an unpopular Senate health-care deal. Granted, polling on the House bill has revealed stronger support among Republicans than Democrats for repealing and replacing Obamacare. But judging from our research, if Republicans were to break their partys seven years of promises to repeal Obamacare just because the polls have changed, many GOP voters would consider it a rudderless sellout, which could carry greater political risk.

[Yes, Mitch McConnells secretive lawmaking really is unusual in these 4 ways]

For Republican lawmakers, effective pandering to constituents may have taken on a new meaning: You can charm your constituents by ignoring majority preferences, in devotion to your principles.

It remains to be seen whether the Republican Senate will pass its health-care plan this week. But its likely to secure the votes of at least 48 of 52 Republicans. And Republicans who vote for it will probably not suffer any meaningful consequence from GOP voters for doing so.

David C. Barker is the incoming director of the Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies and professor of government at American University. Follow him on Twitter @barkerccps.

Christopher Jan Carmanis the Stevenson Professor of Citizenship at the University of Glasgow and the academic dean of the University of Glasgow Nankai University Joint Graduate School. Follow him on Twitter at @cjcarman.

Together they are the authors of Representing Red and Blue: How the Culture Wars Change the Way Citizens Speak and Politicians Listen(Oxford University Press, 2012).

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This is why so many Republicans are ready to ignore public opinion on health care - Washington Post

The Congressional Budget Office estimates twenty-two million fewer people would be insured by 2026 under the GOP's proposed health care plan. USA TODAY

WASHINGTON Ohio Gov. John Kasich ripped Senate Republicans on Tuesday for crafting a health care bill that would cause an estimated 22 million Americans to lose their health insurance.

They think thats great? Thats good public policy? an incredulous Kasich said at a news conference in Washington on Tuesday. What, are you kidding me?

Kasich was referring to an analysis released Monday by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, which estimated that the Senate GOP bill to repeal and replace Obamacare would increase the ranks of the uninsured by 22 million by2026, compared to current law.

Hours after Kasich's remarks, Senate Republican leaders decided to delaya vote on their bill, essentially conceding they did not have enough GOP supportto pass it.Five Republicans were already on the record opposing the bill, while several others were uncommitted.

That left Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.,well short of the 51 yes votes he needed to get the bill through the Senate this weekas he had initially hoped. McConnell said Tuesday that he now hopes to hold a Senate vote on a revamped bill after lawmakers return from their July Fourthrecess.

Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, was publicly undecided on the bill until Tuesday, whenhe announced his opposition after McConnell agreed to yank it from consideration. Portman said he was "committed to continue talking with my colleagues about how we can fix the serious problems in our health care system while protecting Ohios most vulnerable citizens.

Portman has expressed concerns thatthe GOP plan, as currently written, would hurt Ohios low-income residents and undermine the states efforts to expand addiction treatment amid the currentopioid epidemic. He has pressed McConnell to add $45 billion for opioid treatment over 10 years, as a way to cushion the bill's changes to Medicaid, which has become a lifeline for addicts seeking treatment.

Kasich urged Portman not to support the bill even if McConnell agrees to beef up funding for opioid treatment, because that would not be enough to make up for the GOP bill's proposed cuts to federal Medicaid funding.

"I told him if they hand you a few billion dollars on opioids ... thats like spitting in the ocean," Kasich said. "I've talked to Rob a million times. He knows exactly what my concerns are."

Kasich has made his opposition to the GOP bill clear before, but Tuesday he ratcheted up his criticism at a joint news conference with ColoradoDemocratic Gov. John Hickenlooper.

Kasich said congressional Republicans should try getting their own health care through Medicaid or purchasing insurance with the miserly subsidies the GOP plan offers.

Why dont we have those folks go and live under Medicaid for a while? Kasich said. Why dont we have them go live on their exchange where they can get two, three, four thousanddollars a year to cover their health care exchange costs.

Kasich didnt reserve all his ire for his own party. He also blasted lawmakers of all stripes for acting like a bunch of fifth-graders.

We have a health care civil war going on, he said. Its all about recrimination.

He said Republicans should jettison their current bill and start over, while Democrats should stand and challenge the Republicans to negotiate with them.

Democrats have said they would work with Republicans to fix Obamacare if they stop their efforts to repeal or gut the law.

Read more:

Senate health care bill would lead to 22 million more uninsured, CBO says

Health care bill winners (wealthy) and losers (Medicaid recipients), according to the CBO

Senate GOP leaders face growing opposition to health care bill

Read or Share this story: https://usat.ly/2tSWBae

Originally posted here:
John Kasich on Senate Republicans' health care bill: 'Are you kidding me?' - USA TODAY

One week after he lost the most expensive congressional contest in American history, after getting some sleep, Jon Ossoff had a message for his fellow Democrats.

They were on the right track.

Democratic turnout was extremely strong, Ossoff said in his first interview since the race ended in Georgias 6th Congressional District. In an off-year special election, we got general election-level Democratic turnout, and I think thats been lost in the coverage.

Ossoff, who at age 30 raised close to $30 million for his first-ever campaign, was destined either to be his partys latest star or latest martyr. A margin of fewer than 10,000 votes made him the latter as well as the star of hot takes about how the party needed to reboot.

[Analysis: Ossoff chose civility and it didnt work. How do Democrats beat Trump?]

Some Democrats said it was time to oust Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), the House minority leader who starred in most of the races Republican ads. More criticized Ossoff for a runoff race that swerved from attacks on President Trump to economic development in Atlantas suburbs. A spot in which local businessmen described what tax credits could do for the district was compared to ads for DeVry University.

Nobody forced Ossoff to dismiss single payer, or held a gun to his head and made him use dog-whistle language about both parties in Washington wasting taxpayer dollars, wrote D.D. Guttenplan in the Nation.

What the critics miss, Ossoff said, was that the Democratic base did come out after hearing his message. I missed an outright win in April by less than 4,000 votes, then we added 32,000 votes, he said. Democratic turnout and excitement were high, and we won the majority of independents thats a testament to our economic message. I was talking about bringing more jobs and opportunity to Georgia.

Was it necessary to run ads about deficit reduction but not the Republicans push to repeal the Affordable Care Act? News flash: The federal government is not the most efficient institution in the world, Ossoff said. Taxpayers know that. Folks across the spectrum wants more efficient management of their tax dollars.

The Georgia race, said Ossoff, did not develop into the Trump referendum (or health-care referendum) that critics said that he lost. None of the messaging battles that dominate national discussion of Democratic politics were rearing their heads here, he said.

Despite the attacks on his area of residence slightly outside the district, to make life easier for a fiance finishing medical training Ossoff argued that most Republican attacks fell flat. His campaigns polling found his favorability rating staying high, above 50 percent, through the runoff.

That speaks to how weak and soggy their attacks were, said Ossoff. Democrats were united, and we beat a coalition that included most independents in the districts.

Pollsters who had him winning saw the same numbers. The mistake they made was in missing a Republican turnout surge, which at least one local Republican official credited (in part) to the shooting of Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.), which had Republicans doubling down on the message that a vote for Ossoff was a vote for radicalism. One of the final crucial days of the race was spent on coverage of white powder sent to Handels home, with a threatening message the origin of which has not yet been determined.

Ossify declined to gauge the impact of the shooting on his race. I honestly dont know, he said, dropping the subject. It was a neck-and-neck race all the way through.

He was also unmoved by theories that began to spring up before the election that crackdowns on the voter rolls or archaic voting machines might take the election away from him.

I have no reason to doubt the integrity of the election, he said. I did hear anecdotal reports of robocalls misinforming people about Election Day, but I have faith in Georgias election infrastructure.

The inarguable factor in his loss, said Ossoff, was the gush of Republican money that came in to help Handel. It came in the form of paid door-knockers who got out soft Republican votes and in an ad barrage that matched what Ossoff had on the air. Some of those ads attacked Ossoff for being funded by out-of-state donors.

If you watch the first debate, thats how I counterpunched that her campaign was being bailed out by Washington super PACs, he said. Look, we demonstrated here that small-dollar fundraising can go toe to toe with the power of right-wing super PACs funded by mega donors and the lobbyist cartel in Washington. I know it was ironic that mega-donor-funded outside groups were funding those attacks, and it speaks to the structural challenge that Democrats have.

Ossoff has not yet decided whether hed be part of the pushback in 2018. He would make no decision about where he lived, he said, until his fiance finished her education next year.

This campaign demonstrated the potency of a grass-roots political model that will allow people power to counter special-interest power, said Ossoff. The national right-wing apparatus just had to spend nearly $20 million defending a seat that was supposed to be safe. I dont think they should take much comfort in that. Trump and [White House adviser Steve Bannon] were sweating over this race, and they should be sweating into 2018.

Original post:
Jon Ossoff reflects on his race: Republicans 'should be sweating' - Washington Post

After weeks of working in secret, Senate Republicans finally unveiled their Punch Every American in the Stomach bill, legislation that will result in every American being punched in the stomach. Here are the details:

Every American will be punched in the stomach.

It will be a hard punch.

The punch will happen when you least expect it.

Two for flinching.

Seniors get punched three times.

Americans whose income is below two hundred per cent of the federal poverty level get punched five times.

Members of Congress and their families and staff are exempt from being punched in the stomach.

Only U.S. citizens are eligible to be punched in the stomach. If it is discovered that a non-citizen has illegally taken advantage of stomach-punching services, he will be punched in the stomach.

It is estimated that it will take ten years and cost nearly nine hundred billion dollars to punch every American in the stomach.

The stomach punching will be funded by massive cuts to Medicaid and Social Security.

The stomach punching will be carried out by private contractors, who will work with no oversight.

The bill does not provide funding to keep track of who has already been punched in the stomach. However, once you have been punched in the stomach, you can simply give your Stomach Puncher your address and Social Security number, pay a modest convenience fee, and, in three to four weeks, you will receive a notarized letter certifying that you have already been punched in the stomach. Be sure to keep this letter on you at all times if you wish to avoid additional punchings. That said, because the bill states that you will be punched in the stomach when you least expect it, you may not be able to produce your letter in time to avoid being punched in the stomach again.

Americans who die after the bill has been passed but before being punched in the stomach will be dug up and punched in the stomach.

States that wish to provide services beyond stomach punching can opt to receive funds for noogies, wedgies, and wet willies.

Senate Republicans have described this bill as a vast improvement over the version passed several weeks ago by the House of Representatives, which only required ninety per cent of Americans to be punched in the stomach.

In an attempt to win support from Democrats, the bill stipulates that the President will be punched in the stomach, too. One top Democrat, who asked to be quoted anonymously, said of this provision, Oooooh, thats almost worth it.

Getting punched in the stomach replaces everyones health insurance.

Americans in the top income brackets will be punched in the stomach, but they will also receive a massive tax cut.

Read the original here:
Details of Senate Republicans' Punch Every American in the Stomach Bill Revealed - The New Yorker