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The tea party groups that grew out of opposition to President Obama generally and the Affordable Care Act specifically are rising up again, this time to oppose any "repeal and replace" effort that in their minds doesn't adequately repeal and take health care away from enough people. That pressure is backing up Senate hardliners as they dig in to make the bill even more horrible.
“We’re saying it would be better named the ObamaCare Forever Act. We’re not happy with the bill as it is,” said Jon Meadows, a spokesman for FreedomWorks, a prominent conservative advocacy group.
Conservative groups say the legislation will do little to bring down premiums, bolstering senators such as Ted Cruz (R-Texas), Mike Lee (R-Utah), Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) and Rand Paul (R-Ky.), who are holding out against the bill.
FreedomWorks President Adam Brandon said in a statement last week that the legislation “breaks” the promise McConnell made to conservatives to repeal the law “root and branch.”
Another conservative group, the Senate Conservatives Fund, on Monday said the Senate bill would “lead to higher premiums” and “hurt American families.”
It worked on one of those guys—Mike Lee just announced his opposition to the bill, making it five. The Club for Growth hasn't weighed in yet but is expected to also oppose it. Heritage Action and the Koch's Americans for Prosperity are staying engaged—not in full opposition yet, but leaning hard to make the pain for non-prosperous Americans worse. In a statement that rival's anything notorious liar House Speaker Paul Ryan has ever uttered, we’re disappointed lawmakers haven’t done more to improve health care, but we are committed to working with them to make progress, AFP's chief government affairs officer Brent Gardner told The Hill "We’re disappointed lawmakers haven’t done more to improve healthcare, but we are committed to working with them to make progress." Because the Koch brothers want your healthcare to improve.
The end of Medicaid as we know it? No exaggeration. The Senate version of Trumpcare has worse long-term cuts to Medicaid than the House version, to pay for tax breaks to the wealthy. Call your Republican senator at (202) 224-3121, and give them a piece of your mind. Tell us how it went.
It does put McConnell in more of a pincer. Of the five Republicans who are telling him "no" right now, two seem intractably locked in to their opposition—Susan Collins (ME), Dean Heller (NV) and now Lee. To avoid more Medicaid expansion state senators from joining them (Shelley Moore Capito [WV], Jeff Flake [AZ[, Rob Portman [OH], or Bill Cassidy [LA]), McConnell has to either count on their historical willingness to capitulate and make the bill even harsher to win over the hard-liners, or give the moderates more money and encourage hard-right defections.
McConnell is resting most of his hopes on pressuring the hardliners to stay with him by telling them this is their one and only chance to repeal Obamacare and fulfill the main campaign promise they've made over the last seven years. But when their base groups are calling this Obamacare-lite, that argument loses some effectiveness. Bottom line, we just have to keep up the pressure.