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Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is postponing August recess until the third week of the month, perhaps an indication that he doesn't really think he can get Trumpcare to the floor and passed next week, as he's been planning.
According to his statement announcing this, it's the Democrats' fault: "In order to provide more time to complete action on important legislative times and process nominees that have been stalled by a lack of cooperation from our friends across the aisle, the Senate will delay the start of the August recess until the third week of August." It's more like a message to Republicans—the beatings will continue until you agree to pass Trumpcare, and you can't have vacation, either. Nor can you face your constituents for another prolonged period of time, because they'll tell you how much they hate this.
Meanwhile, there are a few hints of what's going to be in the next revision of the bill coming as early as Thursday. One of the provisions is a loophole to allow insurance companies to bring back the ability to exclude sick people from getting policies. The bill would allow "self-employed Americans to opt out of the individual market and buy into the health plans that large employers provide, which have more lax regulatory standards."
This could harm consumers in two ways. First, it could badly damage the individual market by leaving behind a sicker, more expensive population. Second, these association health plans may not cover expensive benefits like maternity care or mental health services, which could leave enrollees in a lurch should unexpected medical needs arise.
Between this and the ability of states to waive enforcement of essential health benefits, protections for people with pre-existing conditions would be gutted, preserved in theory only so Republicans could say they kept their promise to keep them. That's not a good look for Republicans, but they'll probably keep it anyway. The more blatant politically awful stuff, though, is apparently going away. They're keeping Obamacare's taxes on the wealthy, since plenty of senators were raising hell about how bad it looked to be ending Medicaid for those tax cuts. Note, McConnell isn't talking about saving Medicaid—just keeping the money that would have gone to those cuts in order to bribe the so-called moderates into supporting the bill. He's still juggling, though—losing those tax cuts probably means losing one or two extremists. Those are losses he can't afford.
Working through August recess is a sign of just how desperate McConnell is to get this repeal done. Let's keep him scrambling, by keeping those phone lines jammed.
Daily Kos readers have made over 30,000 constituent calls to Senate Republicans in the last month opposing Trumpcare. If you live in a state with a Senate Republican, you can call, too! Call your senator at (202) 224-3121, tell them NO WAY to taking health insurance away from millions. Then, tell us how it went.