McConnell rejects calls from Trump, Paul and others to repeal Obamacare now and replace it later; making deals to get votes-HEALTHYLIVE

Sen. Mitch McConnell spoke at the State Theater
in Elizabethtown. (Courier-Journal photo by Alton Strupp)

Kentucky Health News

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has reportedly started making deals to get the necessary votes for his health bill, rejecting suggestions by President Trump and strongly conservative Republican senators – including Kentucky seatmate Rand Paul – that Republicans try to repeal Obamacare now and worry about replacing it later.

"Trump tweeted that if Republicans could not reach a consensus on health insurance they "should immediately REPEAL, and then REPLACE at a later date!" Paul "has been saying the same thing," notes Chief Correspondent Dan Balz of The Washington Post.

McConnell, speaking to reporters Friday evening after a Republican dinner in Elizabethtown, said "We are going to stick with that path," which calls for making changes in the bill that he released eight days earlier and seemed to lose more Republican senators' support with each passing day.

Protesters stood across the street. (C-J photo by Alton Strupp)

"Failure has to be possible or you can't have success," McConnell told the crowd at the Hardin County Lincoln Dinner. He did a riff on Trump's campaign slogan, asking, "It's not easy making American great again, is it?"

He alluded to his reported deal-making, which requires pleasing both Republican conservatives and moderates: "I'm sitting there with a Rubik's Cube, trying to figure out how to twist the dials to get to 50" votes, at which point Vice President Mike Pence would break the tie to pass the bill.

McConnell has added "$45 billion in spending to fight opioid abuse and to allow health savings accounts to be used to toward premiums, according to a source familiar with the matter," the Washington Examiner reports. "The HSA change is expected to reduce revenues by about $60 billion over the next decade." McConnell is able to make such changes because the Congressional Budget Office estimated that the bill would save almost $200 billion more over 10 years than the bill the House passed in early May.

Meanwhile, "Democrats believe they have momentum as they head toward a final showdown in July," The Hill reports. "Democrats are united around a single political message, that the bill will give tax breaks to the rich while taking healthcare away coverage for the poor. . . . GOP senators are now openly debating whether to keep a tax on high earners that was created to help pay for Obamacare. The money saved from preserving the tax could allow Republicans to increase the financial assistance for lower-income people."

“The initial draft bill really didn’t provide an opportunity for low-income citizens to buy health care that actually covered them,” Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) said, “so that equation is going to change.” That prospect did not please conservative groups, which are "targeting individual senators and threatening political consequences if the GOP falls short of fully repealing Obamacare," reports Adam Cancryn of Politico.

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