Campaign Action
Sen. Ted Cruz's amendment—or a variation on it, anyway—to allow bare-bones, crappy health insurance policies under Trumpcare will be in the base Trumpcare bill, Mitch McConnell's sop to get the extremist on board.
The bill will include a provision based on a proposal by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), which allows health plans to offer skimpy coverage options so long as they have at least one plan that covers a robust set of benefits. The insurance industry opposes the policy, calling it "infeasible" and fearing it would create “greater instability.”
Those bad initial reviews—from the insurance industry, no less—are prompting McConnell to offer another sop to Cruz. He's talking about having the popular vote loser Donald Trump's Health and Human Services department, headed up by ultra-partisan crook Tom Price, "score" the amendment, with the excuse that using the regular procedure of using the Congressional Budget Office's score would take too long.
The HHS score would speed up that timeline, but whether the score would comply with reconciliation rules, or if it would simply be symbolic—allowing Republicans to work around the parliamentarian to vote on a bill including the Cruz proposal without a CBO score—is uncertain.
One Senate GOP aide told IJR that budget projections for reconciliation measures don't actually need to originate from the CBO, though. Simply “a score” could do, and it would be up to Senate Budget Committee Chairman Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.) to determine what qualifies as a score under the Budget Act. […]
Such a move, which one Republican lobbyist described as “a tactical nuke,” would signify a controversial departure from using the nonpartisan budgeting office for scoring.
Why the hell not? Everything McConnell has done as majority leader has been a series of tactical nukes. Everything he's done on this bill—refusing to allow it to go to any committee, refusing hearings, refusing meetings and input from healthcare providers or patient advocacy groups, not letting his own damn senators see it—has been a controversial departure from how the Senate is supposed to work. Will this move finally be a bridge too far from the likes of "institutionalists" like Sens. John McCain (R-AZ), Chuck Grassley (R-IA), or Lindsey Graham (R-SC)?
Make your Republican senator feel the heat. Call their office EVERY DAY at (202) 224-3121 to demand that they say NO to Trumpcare and ripping health care away from millions of Americans. After your call, tell us how it went.