Fun times ahead for these guys.
It seems that perhaps Senate Republican leadership learned something from the months of
King v. Burwell chaos, in which it became blindingly, horribly clear that there was no way Republicans were ever going to come up with a solution that actually helped people keep affordable health insurance. When they came in to the majority in January, they pledged that if the Supreme Court didn't gut Obamacare, they'd take care of repealing it through the reconciliation budget process. But now they're
backing away from the promise, with a lot of buck passing and hemming and hawing that is not going over well with the problem children in the House.
The chairmen of the key Senate committees overseeing Obamacare—Orrin Hatch of Finance, and Lamar Alexander of Health, Education, Labor and Pensions—say they haven’t drawn up reconciliation plans, saying doing so is up to leadership.
Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), a member of the Senate leadership and a point person on health policy, said there's no rush to do reconciliation immediately—and that Senate leaders haven't decided on how to use the fast-track budget tool.
"There's no timeline on the reconciliation bill, so it can be used at any point," Barrasso said, even though the GOP's own budget resolution had instructed five health care committees—two in the Senate and three in the House—to come up with a repeal plan by July 24. […]
"Reconciliation instructions should be very narrow and focused exclusively on Obamacare," said Rep. Bill Flores of Texas, chairman of the conservative Republican Study Committee.
"No one thinks Obama’s going to sign a repeal of his own bill … but I'm still for doing it," said Rep. Alex Mooney (R-W.Va.), another House conservative. "It's what I pledged to do in my campaign."
One of the things that actually got many of the problem children to vote for the budget resolution was the fact that it included the repeal instructions. It's the only way Republicans can actually pass a repeal in both chambers and get what they want—the president's veto. They need that veto to inject some more life into the now-flagging fight against the law, the only real issue they've had to run on for the past three cycles. But for a number of Republican senators up for re-election in swing states, going to extremes for another repeal vote isn't really helpful and Senate leadership is also responsible for thinking about how they keep the majority.
All this fighting is going on against the backdrop of the looming budget deadline and the always-present threat of another shutdown. Knowing how much the House problem children love using threats like government shutdowns when it comes to Obamacare, McConnell and team are going to have to come up with some pretty fancy footwork to get out of this mess.