Healthcare Update

Ken AshfordCongress, Health Care, Trump & AdministrationLeave a Comment

Yesterday was a strange news day and not just because of the Trump’s tweets about Morning Joe.  I want to cover much of it, and it is going to take a couple of posts.

First, healthcare.

The Senate Health Care bill looks dead.  McConnell wanted to get the Senate bill, BCRA, passed before the July 4 extended break.  He wanted it passed without hearings, without debate, without amendments. The CBO score on the bill was horrible, and McConnell could not bridge the gap between the Freedom Caucus (Rand Paul) who thought the Senate version didn’t go far enough, and the moderate Republicans (Susan Collins) who rightly saw the bill as barbaric.  A last ditch effort yesterday led to nothing, and the Senate adjourned.

That didn’t stop Trump from tweeting about health care this morning.

Why this tweet is extraordinary: It’s literally the opposite of what then president-elect Trump told Paul Ryan after he won the election and shortly before Congress went into session. Part of the reason why the House GOP leadership didn’t run with a clean repeal vote, as they’d done many times under President Obama, was because Trump had made it clear to Ryan he wouldn’t sign the bill.

Behind Trump’s tweet: He’s frustrated, like every other Republican involved in the jammed-up health care negotiations. HHS Secretary Tom Price met with senior officials at the White House yesterday, and a source familiar with the meeting said the mood was far more negative than the day before.

Looks like the break is coming and GOP lawmakers are going to get an earful in town meetings at home