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There's no indication that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has the 50 votes necessary in his Republican caucus to advance his Trumpcare bill to the floor next week, but he's trying. He announced Tuesday that he was cutting the Senate's August recess short by two weeks, a move that puts extra special pressure on one of his problematic senators—Dean Heller of Nevada.
Heller is the most vulnerable Republican in 2018, the senator who most needs August recess to kick off his re-election campaign. Whether the things McConnell is adding to the bill will win over Heller isn't clear at this point, but seems pretty unlikely.
The revised bill is expected to include a $45 billion fund to help combat the opioid epidemic, as well as a provision allowing consumers to use health savings accounts to pay for premiums.
Senate Republicans are also likely to keep a pair of taxes imposed by the Affordable Care Act on people with high incomes. The law increased the payroll tax rate for many high-income taxpayers and imposed a tax on their investment income. Both taxes would be eliminated by the repeal bill passed by the House in May and by the original version of Mr. McConnell’s bill. […]
But the largest changes to the health care system are likely to remain in the bill. About two-thirds of the increase in the projected number of uninsured Americans would result from deep cuts in expected Medicaid spending, the budget office said. The bill would impose caps on Medicaid spending and would roll back the expansion of the program under the Affordable Care Act.
As of now, whether the amendment Sens. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Mike Lee (R-UT) have been insisting will be included is being decided by the Senate parliamentarian—it might not pass muster under the rules McConnell is using for the bill. There's talk that McConnell is using some of the tax money he's keeping to boost a "stabilization fund" to bring down premium costs—a minimal boost to completely insufficient fund.
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.
The main thing to note here is that the bill will still end Medicaid as we know it, and is still worse than the House bill in that it would make larger long-term cuts. That was one of Heller's main problems with the bill. It remains a problem with Sens. Susan Collins (R-ME) and Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), both of whom say from what they've heard, enough hasn't been done to answer their concerns.
McConnell, however, is undaunted in pushing this thing. He will release it Thursday, get a Congressional Budget Office score early next week, and schedule a vote Thursday or Friday. If that doesn't work? The idea of a repeal only bill coming to the floor is not out of the question. So keep on calling.