Campaign Action
The Congressional Budget Office, which was expected to release a partial score of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's latest version of Trumpcare Monday, is delaying the release of that score in light of the postponed vote. McConnell originally planned to hold the vote this week, but Sen. John McCain's unexpected cranial surgery threw a spanner in those works.
What is unclear is whether or not the CBO will be taking this opportunity to evaluate Sen. Ted Cruz's proposal for the law. CBS is reporting that they will. Axios, however, is reporting based on what they're hearing from Republican Senate aides that the CBO is "unlikely" to take on the Cruz amendment "because it could take weeks for the budget office to figure out its effects." On the other hand, they're also reporting that the score might not come this week at all.
Another big unknown in all of this is McCain's medical condition, which is about as ironic as it gets considering we're talking health care for millions of people. Here's a millionaire who has multiple levels of publicly funded healthcare coverage—the VA, Medicare, and his taxpayer-funded Senate plan. McConnell might be optimistic in his one-week delay, according to reporting in The New York Times. Generally, the Times reports, recovery from this takes at least a few weeks.
Democrats have seized the opportunity to remind McConnell and the public that there still haven't been public hearings on the proposal, and now they have time to do so.
"We request that you use this additional time to hold public hearings so that Senators can invite impartial experts, including patients, to testify on the policies in the bill," Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and Sens. Patty Murray and Ron Wyden wrote in a letter to Majority Leader Mitch McConnell this morning.
It's not going to happen, but it should act as a potent reminder to all the Republican senators McConnell is leaning on that he's playing them for chumps, expecting them to vote for something that will harm thousands of their constituents and which they've had no input in. Maybe an extra week or two will make that realization sink in.
Time to jam the phone lines—Republicans still want to pass Trumpcare! Even if you called before, call your senator at (202) 224-3121. Tell them Trumpcare is SICK, MEAN and CRUEL. Then, tell us how it went.