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Texas Sen. John Cornyn freely admits it: the whole strategy guiding the Senate this week is passing any damned thing they can so that they can take it to the House in conference, then cook up whatever they feel like—with a minimum of input from anyone outside of that room.
The No. 2 Senate Republican told reporters Wednesday that a scaled-down, "skinny" bill "seems to have a lot of benefits, getting us to conference." […]
Cornyn noted that new Senate ideas — such as Sen. Ted Cruz's (R-Texas) amendment to let insurers sell plans outside of ObamaCare's regulations and Sen. Rob Portman's (R-Ohio) amendment to add $100 billion to help people losing Medicaid afford private coverage — could be included and could help pave the way for a deal in the conference committee.
"We use the template of the House bill that addresses all of these issues and come up with the best of the ideas we've developed, like the Cruz freedom amendment and the Portman negotiation on Medicaid and the wraparound, and all those would be live and could be used as part of a deal in the conference committee," Cornyn said.
"So I think all we're looking at is a way to get to that conference quick," he added.
Oh, okay, says the rank-and file, or in his case just Tennessee Sen. Bob Corker. The "content" of it doesn't matter, because it is the "forcing mechanism" for conference with House. There's Corker happily ceding any say in this at all to Mitch McConnell and the House maniacs. He's not alone. Nevada Sen. Dean Heller says "I look on it ... favorably. It’s good for the state of Nevada."
Heller appears to be operating under the assumption—or trying to make his constituents believe—that it means there won't be any Medicaid cuts if this passes. Either he’s truly an idiot or he thinks his constituents are, because those Medicaid cuts aren't going away. What's going to happen is that the conference committee will put them back in and McConnell will beat on Heller until he gives in and votes for the final bill. That's certainly what McConnell has in mind. Heller should know better by now.
Please give $1 to each of our Senate funds so that Republican senators—especially Dean Heller—know there'll be a price to pay for repealing health care.
All we need are three Republican senators to stop the repeal of Obamacare. 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 you call, please tell us how it went.)