Popular vote loser Donald Trump finally got fed up with having to deal with the losers in the Freedom Caucus, and made his ultimatum: vote Friday or live with Obamacare. So House Speaker Paul Ryan is making them vote today.
The House cleared the way for the just-written bill—seriously, the ink isn't even dry—to come to the floor even though almost no one will have had a chance to read it by voting to impose "martial law" on the House last night. That lets leadership override House rules that require at least a day between substantive legislation being introduced and moved to the floor. Needless to say, that was a strict party line vote.
The vote could come as early as 10:00 ET this morning, but there's a lot of procedure to get through before then and don't expect Democrats to be making any step of it easy for Ryan's team. The Rules Committee has to finish its work, where all of the Democrats will be pointing out that none of the members have had a chance to read the bill and that they don't have an updated Congressional Budget Office score with the elements that they agreed to on Thursday being added. Republicans will say none of that matters and jam this on through.
Speaking of the CBO, they did score the negotiated "manager's amendment" and it was worse than the original Trumpcare bill, saving half as much in deficits (how do you like them apples, Freedom Caucus?) and leaving as many uninsured in ten years—24 million.
Let's make this failure complete. The vote is happening TODAY. 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.
The changes they're making to the bill that will go to the floor will strip out the essential health benefits (outpatient care you get without being admitted to a hospital; emergency room services; hospitalization for things like surgery and overnight stays; pregnancy, maternity, and newborn care; mental health and substance use disorder services, including behavioral health treatment—counseling and psychotherapy; prescription drugs; rehabilitative and habilitative services and devices; laboratory services; preventive and wellness services and chronic disease management; pediatric services, including oral and vision care). To make up for that because it sounds and it is really heinous, they are adding in a slush fund of $15 billion to provide to states to go to "mental health, substance abuse, infant and maternity care." They will also require that each state "determine its list of essential benefits to be included in their plans so Governors and Legislatures would be able to determine which benefits are required in each plan." Which means blue states would have strict coverage guidelines and red states sucky ones.
They apparently are trying to convince moderate Republicans that this is all okay to vote yes on because the Senate will just take it out when they get the bill. Of course, moderate Republicans will still have to face campaign ads saying that they voted to strip out your mother's mammogram coverage, so it might not be so convincing.
And just so we go into this very fraught day with some sunshine, CNN's Dana Bash is reporting that a senior White House official told her that Trump has "increasing concerns about how House speaker has handled this process." The corpse isn't even cold and the stubby finger-pointing has begun.