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It's really hard to determine if Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has the path forward to a Trumpcare vote laid out and is just creating massive confusion over what his senators will even be voting on as a smokescreen, or whether he is truly scrambling and honestly doesn't have a clue which of three bills is going to the floor next week.
His choices: repeal and delay; Trumpcare 3.0 as disastrously scored by the CBO on Thursday; or Trumpcare 3.0 with the amendment from Texas Sen. Ted Cruz that would turn the insurance exchange into a big, unaffordable high-risk pool. One thing is definitely certain: he's pissing off his caucus.
The uncertainty so close to a major vote is feeding a growing sense of chaos on Capitol Hill, where GOP senators are openly fretting about the lack of information about legislation that could leave anywhere from 22 million to 32 million more Americans without health insurance.
"I don’t even know what we’re proceeding to next week," said Maine Sen. Susan Collins, a centrist Republican who has called on her party’s leaders to take a more measured approach to fixing the current healthcare law.
"I don’t know whether we’re proceeding to the House bill, a new version of the Senate bill, the old version of the Senate bill, the 2015 repeal-and-hope-that-we-come-up-with something-in-two-years bill. I truly don’t."
Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) compared the current Senate GOP healthcare discussions to a “bazaar,” with tens of billions of dollars being offered up to woo holdout senators. “I fear that it's beginning to lack coherency," Corker told reporters.
Beginning to lack coherency? Sounds like it's safe to say Collins is going to remain firmly in the "no" column. But it's the "bazaar" that is the problem.
McConnell got a couple hundred billion more in savings as identified by the CBO in this iteration of the bill, because it no longer repeals some high-earner taxes. That means he has money to play with in bribing various senators in hopes of reaching the 50 votes he needs.
It's worth noting, however, that he is still holding on to his bag of tricks. For instance, will he still include the Cruz amendment even if the CBO doesn't score it? His spokesman "declined to say." Through the murk, his strategy is clear: get through the initial procedural vote one way or the other and then beat the bare minimum of his senators senseless enough into passing what he really wants—the destruction of Medicaid and Obamacare.
All we need are three Republican senators to stop this in its tracks. If you have a GOP senator, we need you to call their office at (202) 224-3121 and demand that they put their constituents above their party by voting to oppose the repeal of Obamacare. After the call, tell us how the call went.