While the House leadership continues its arm-twisting of members to try to force them to put through the remarkably awful Trumpcare bill they've cobbled together, the Senate is eyeing them with distrust and the typical loathing. Meanwhile, opposition from all over the Republican spectrum is hardening.
More than enough Senate Republicans oppose the House bill to kill it—with rival camps insisting on pulling the bill in opposite directions to meet their demands. With just a 52-48 majority, the bill would fail if three or more Republicans vote against it.
Republican leaders face a conundrum: If they move the bill to the right, moderates go running; move it to the left, and conservative opponents dig in.
Whether Republicans would actually tank something they've promised for the past seven years is unclear. All of them say they want something to pass, and House leaders unveiled tweaks to the bill Monday evening.
Those tweaks aren't going to help. For one thing, it dumps a hot potato in their lap: $85 billion to do something to make tax credits better for older people, but the Senate is going to be responsible for figuring out how to do that. That'll go over well! No one will appreciate that.
The tension leadership is facing is exemplified in the two senators from Arkansas. The normally ultra-conservative Tom Cotton is warning that the House majority is in jeopardy with this vote, and the normally silent John Boozman is going out on a very moderate limb: "Arkansas and its governor would very much like to keep the [Medicaid] expansion." Keeping Medicaid? That's questioning GOP orthodoxy, and it's a big problem for Ryan and Trump.
The problems extend from the Ted Cruz/Mike Lee/Rand Paul wing on the far-far-far-far right, to the very vulnerable Dean Heller from the Medicaid expansion state of Nevada, to Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski (also a Medicaid expansion senator) who oppose Planned Parenthood defunding. If Ryan manages to jam this through the House, the window for getting it through the Senate is slamming shut.
The House is scheduled to vote on Trumpcare on THURSDAY, MARCH 23. Even if you already called your member of Congress, do it again by calling the Capitol Hill switchboard at (202) 224-3121. Jam the phone lines, urge them to vote NO.