Getting the Freedom Caucus's stamp of approval on most anything is a pretty surefire bet that it won't get through the Senate, even if it manages to make it through the full House. That's true of their latest venture with popular vote loser Donald Trump, Zombie Trumpcare. It's a couple of really bad ideas glommed on to the already terrible ideas in the previous iteration. That will raise issues for the moderates, again, and it probably won't avoid the same problems that the original had in the Senate, as Greg Sargent writes.
There’s a decent chance that his new proposal probably could not pass the Senate by a simple majority because of procedural obstacles, a congressional expert tells me, which would make its passage a lot less likely.
The new proposal would further relax some of the Affordable Care Act’s regulations, to placate conservatives who thought the previous GOP bill didn’t deregulate enough of it. States could seek waivers to opt out of the ACA’s requirement that insurers cover “Essential Health Benefits,” such as visits to the doctor, prescription drugs and maternity care. They could also opt out of the prohibition against insurers charging more from the sick than from the healthy. House conservatives are now saying this might get them on board.
But the problem is that, since this is a deregulatory change, a bill with this feature in it might not be able to pass the Senate by a simple majority under the “reconciliation” process, which is reserved for provisions with a budgetary dimension, according to Sarah Binder, a congressional scholar at George Washington University. This would trigger a so-called “Byrd Rule” challenge from Democrats, and to get around it, Republicans would have to appeal to the Senate parliamentarian.
“At first blush, it would sure seem that these are policy changes,” Binder told me this morning. “If these changes are primarily regulatory, they would likely be tripped up by the Byrd Rule.”
The House maniacs say that's an easy fix—change the Byrd Rule. That's not necessarily a fix that's going to win over more moderates, however, in the House. One of their complaints about the first iteration was that they were taking what was likely to be a really unpopular vote for no reason, when it wouldn't pass the Senate. That's probably true again. It's not going to be any more popular with Senate moderates because it will still leave people uninsured AND it breaks the one promise Republicans have made in this—they'll keep the protections for people with pre-existing conditions.
Remember as well that, for the Senate, this wouldn't be happening in a vacuum. Sure, the Freedom Caucus and Trump can thump on them about breaking the Byrd Rules, but this very week they're going to be overturning the granddaddy of Senate rules and norms—the filibuster on Supreme Court nominees. That's not sitting well with some Republican senators, even though they'll cave to McConnell and do it. Then they'll go home for two weeks and get yelled at by their constituents who are pissed about the treatment of Merrick Garland (if we're doing our jobs right, that is). Will they want to come back and overthrow more rules for what's going to be a hugely unpopular bill? Not too likely.