Ever day that goes by, particularly those days that have another House member roasted at home over his or her Trumpcare vote, is another day that Senate Republicans can become more scared about following the House down that shithole. Another day in which it's going to be harder for Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to get the 51 votes he needs to agree to whatever it is his death panel comes up with. There are a lot of problems for him—he's got Ted Cruz on his death panel and no one is going to want to work with him. Likewise, he's got Freedom Caucus maniac Mark Meadows (R-NC) from the House working with them, which would turn off any moderate. But mostly, he's got 52 egos, and separate agendas to manage.
With his razor-thin majority, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell can afford to lose only two GOP votes. That turns each senator into a de facto powerbroker with the ability to shape—or kill—legislation simply by aligning with two other members.
More of those alliances appear to be springing up almost daily, underscoring McConnell’s challenge to wrangle 50 votes for any legislation. […]
In one corner are five Republicans led by Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, among the most outspoken GOP critics of the House legislation, who want to give states the power to enact their own plans — including Obamacare if they choose to keep it.
Another group of centrists—Sens. Rob Portman of Ohio, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia and Gardner—worry about repealing Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion, which has provided coverage to millions of their residents and pumped billions of federal dollars into their states. […]
For now, though, they [the death panel] are diving deep on policy: They plan to hold meetings on health policy almost every day the Senate is in town. Both the 13-member working group and the full Republican conference have discussed how to give states greater flexibility on Medicaid "in a way that doesn’t pull the rug out from under anyone who is served by Medicaid,” Alexander said.
Hey, you might be thinking, shouldn't the deep dive into policy work on this be done by the committees that deal with health policy—Finance and Health, Education, Labor and Pensions? You would be right. And you would be living in a different time, when the majority party in Congress actually cared about the policies they were drafting. When there was actually a legislative practice, as immortalized by Schoolhouse Rock.
Remember when Mitch McConnell promised that the Senate would return to "regular order" on his watch after Republicans regained the majority? Yeah, that was bullshit. Nothing that matters is going to be determined by regular order again. What McConnell can't shove through under the rules of budget reconciliation, which requires just 51 votes, he won't do at all. Or he'll decide to blow it all to hell and dump the legislative filibuster.
Among those 52 Senate Republicans, all with their competing agendas and concerns, there only need to be three or four willing to stick together to restore some semblance of integrity to the institution. Trumpcare is going to be their first, big test. And no, I'm not holding my breath, either.