Here's what to expect this week on Trumpcare: the completely unexpected. The vote will happen either soon after 12 PM ET today, or after 2:15 ET when the weekly caucus lunches are over. That timing likely depends on negotiations that will be taking place right up until vote time. Axios has a good run-down of the mechanics of this.
1. Today, McConnell will call a vote on a motion to proceed to the House-passed bill.
2. If the motion to proceed succeeds, McConnell would then offer a substitute amendment of some sort, and the clock would start running on 20 hours of debate. (It could take longer than 20 real-world hours to exhaust 20 legislative hours.)
3. Senate aides tell my colleague Caitlin Owens the primary substitute would probably be the 2015 repeal-only bill, with a version of repeal-and-replace offered as an amendment to that amendment.
4. Once those 20 hours are up, the voting marathon begins—on amendments to McConnell's substitute, and on points of order to strip out provisions that don't conform to the Senate's budget rules. McConnell could also offer different substitutes during this part of the process.
5. If and when everyone has worn themselves out, at the end of the process, they'd vote on whether to adopt the substitute amendment, including whatever changes have been made to it throughout the process; and then to pass the underlying bill.
That's basically the outline of the process but once they get started on the voting marathon, it's going to be a circus. Democrats will be prepared with dozens, if not hundreds, of amendments that will be rejected, but will put Republicans on the record making horrible, horrible votes. Additionally, there will be amendments that will not have been scored by the Congressional Budget Office that Democrats will challenge with the parliamentarian as requiring 60 votes to pass. That's where it could get hairy, because a couple of those amendments—Ted Cruz's that would turn the exchanges into a high-risk pool, and one from Rob Portman on Medicaid—might be necessary to get Republican votes on final passage.
This is where we find out how deeply McConnell is committed to blowing up the Senate, and how willing his Republican caucus is to go along. He could go nuclear and overrule the chair. Whether he does that and whether he's successful depends mostly on how far his colleagues are willing to go.
There's also this possibility, according to some Republican sources: the end goal is "skinny repeal." They reject the Cruz and Portman amendments to dispense with that and consolidate votes around a straight-up repeal, but a narrow one that gets rid of the Affordable Care Act's individual and employer mandates, and the medical device tax. That can get through his Senate caucus and then go on to a conference with the House where they can do more damage. McConnell would be telling his members "we'll fix it in conference," meaning we'll make it as bad as you want it in conference.
It would give us more time to fight, more time to resist. But it also keeps repeal momentum alive. It's much better that this ends now. This week. In failure. Call.
Here are the reported undecideds, the senators whose states have the most to lose. Call them. Tell them to bring this travesty to a screeching halt by voting "no" on the motion to proceed.
Make your Republican senator feel the heat. Call their office EVERY DAY at (202) 224-3121 to demand that they say NO to repealing Obamacare and ripping health care away from millions of Americans. After your call, tell us how it went.