House Speaker Paul Ryan isn't going to let a disastrous CBO report get in the way of his really bad Trumpcare bill. Nope, he's sticking with it. But he's got a couple of big problems. The extremists are still against him. The CBO report and the brutal headlines that have followed it are going to push moderates even further away and possibly put the Senate out of reach.
Conservatives are as much against the bill as ever, even though the CBO report came back with the thing you'd think they'd want to hear: a lower deficit. But like all good deficit peacocks, that's not their real thing. They're real thing is still killing every vestige of Obamacare. "This bill doesn’t repeal Obamacare," says Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH). "This bill doesn’t unite Republicans. This bill doesn't bring down the cost of premiums. . . . There's a reason every major conservative organization in the country is opposed to this legislation."
Things aren't a lot better in the Senate, where the whole spectrum of the GOP is unhappy with the bill, including one in leadership.
“Can’t sugarcoat it. Doesn’t look good,” said Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.). “The CBO score was, shall we say, an eye-popper.”
Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn of Texas sought to distance the Senate from the House bill, saying “we expect to do better” than the results that CBO showed.
“The House is going to continue to work on the bill to try and build support for it. But until they do, there’s not much for the Senate to do,” Cornyn said. Asked about conservative predictions this bill can’t pass the Senate, he said: “It’s premature to talk about that.” […]
“I’m concerned about the Medicaid population. That’s the biggest part of the coverage for Ohio,” said Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio), who has emerged as a protector of his state’s decision to expand Medicaid.
Those Medicaid-state Republican senators—and it's a growing list with Montana's Steve Daines worried about the Medicaid population in their states now have the numbers from the CBO to back up their opposition. There are at least 10 Republican senators who got spooked by the CBO's report that this bill is as bad as everyone was afraid it was or who are taking the extremists' "Obamacare-lite" position.
No one knows where Trump is going to land in all this, since he changes sides between Ryan and the maniacs on a daily basis and sometimes twice a day. Anyone relying on Trump to lead the way here is a fool.
TrumpCare is a travesty: It cuts taxes for the rich, kills Medicaid expansion for the poor and defunds Planned Parenthood. We can defeat it in the Senate, if you call the Capitol Hill switchboard at (202) 224-3121 and contact your senators.