Sens. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Bill Cassidy, R-La., have retooled their health care bill, doling out additional funds to a trio of states where several Republican hold-outs live.
More federal dollars would go to Kentucky, Arizona and Alaska in the latest revision, Politico reported, a sweetener to bring Sens. Rand Paul, R-Ky., John McCain, R-Ariz., and Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, on board.
Paul was the first GOP senator to come out as a no, followed by McCain on Friday. Murkowski hasn’t publicly said how she’s going to vote.
On Monday morning, one of Paul’s aides told CNN that the Kentucky senator remained a no.
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., released a statement Friday saying he would vote no on the Graham-Cassidy plan. Now they’re throwing more money at Arizona to get him to reconsider
Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, photographed as she’s mobbed by reporters last week, hasn’t publicly announced how she plans to vote on Graham-Cassidy
Republican bill sponsors are throwing more money to states, including Kentucky, to try and get hold-outs, like Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., on board
Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, said Sunday at the Texas Tribune Festival that he doesn’t support the Graham-Cassidy ‘right now,’ which further hinders Republican plans to kill Obamacare
President Trump told reporters Sunday that the Republicans would ‘eventually’ win on health care, though said taxes has been a bigger priority for his presidency anyway
Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, indicated on Sunday that she would have a hard time voting for the bill. She voted alongside Murkowski and McCain to kill the ‘skinny’ repeal effort earlier this year
On Sunday night, President Trump tried to urge the senators to move to the yes column, tweeting, ‘Alaska, Arizona, Maine and Kentucky are big winners in the Healthcare proposal.’
Maine Republican Sen. Susan Collins has also suggested she’s unlikely to vote for the bill.
Trump also distanced himself from the success or failure of the health care push.
Talking to reporters Sunday, Trump said he believed ‘eventually’ the GOP would pass an Obamacare repeal, though he suggested tax reform, which he is just getting to this week, has always been his bigger concern.
‘Eventually we will win on that,’ Trump said from the tarmac as he boarded Air Force One to head back to D.C. ‘My primary focus, I must tell you, it has been from beginning, as you might imagine is taxes.’
Trump seemed miffed that Republicans were once again fouling up an opportunity to nix Obamacare, as he ticked off the benefits to the states the GOP hold-outs represent.
Critics of the plan suggest that even an increase in dollars to particular states represents a cut, as Medicaid will be put on a budget.
‘Every state you’re talking about it happens to be particularly good for. So I don’t know what they’re doing,’ Trump argued.
But it was Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, who was the latest GOP senator to suggest he would be a no vote on the Graham-Cassidy bill.
‘Right now, they don’t have my vote and I don’t think they have Mike Lee’s vote either,’ Cruz said at the Texas Tribune Festival on Sunday, suggesting his fellow conservative Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, could also be a no vote, according to Politico.
Cruz’s comments came as Collins said on both Face the Nation and State of the Union that she’s likely a no as well.
‘Well, it is hard for me to envision getting to yet on this bill, because my concerns are so fundamental,’ Collins, a moderate from Maine, told CBS’ John Dickerson on Sunday morning.
It was always going to be difficult for Republicans to thread the needle on a health care reform bill, with their margins in the Senate so thin.
Even with the vote of Vice President Mike Pence, the GOP could only afford to lose the support of three senators.
Already, Paul was a no.
On Meet the Press Sunday, the Kentucky senator argued that the Graham-Cassidy bill ‘basically keeps most of the Obamacare spending – almost all of the spending – and just reshuffles it and block grants it to the states.’
Paul has long wanted to fully repeal Obamacare and implement various market reforms, such as allowing Americans to buy health insurance across state lines.
On Friday, Paul was joined in the no column by McCain who derailed the Republicans last health care reform effort as well, voting against the so-called ‘skinny’ Obamacare repeal.
This time around, McCain said he couldn’t ‘in good conscience’ support the Graham-Cassidy proposal, even though Graham is his longtime Senate friend.
‘I believe we could do better working together, Republicans and Democrats, and have not yet really tried,’ McCain said.
The leaders of the Senate’s Health, Education, Labor & Pensions Committee, Sens. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., and Patty Murray, D-Wash., had made an effort to work with one another on an Obamacare fix.
Then Republicans became skeptical of Democratic motives when Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., introduced a Medicare for all bill, which received support from about one-third of the Democrats in the Senate, of both moderate and progressive bent.
At the same time, Democrats saw Republicans continuing to work on the Graham-Cassidy proposal, which Graham and Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., first spoke publicly about in July.
Thus, bipartisan efforts were derailed.
McCain also said he couldn’t support the Graham-Cassidy bill without a full score from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, worrying about the cost of the measure, how it will impact insurance premiums and how many Americans could be helped or hurt by it.
The CBO said it could produce a preliminary report on the proposal, though not a full one by the September 30 deadline, which Republicans were aiming for so they could use reconciliation to pass the bill, meaning they would need just majority support.
‘Without a full CBO score, which won’t be available by the end of the month, we won’t have reliable answers to any of those questions,’ McCain said in a statement Friday.
Collins voiced concerns about the CBO score as well.
‘CBO’s analysis in the past has been very helpful to me in evaluating bills such as the previous bills that I opposed,’ she said.
The Maine Republican had also voted no on the ‘skinny’ repeal, alongside Murkowski.
‘The problem is, CBO may have a very difficult time analyzing the bill because it still seems to be a moving target, even over the weekend,’ Collins continued. ‘The sponsors were making changes in it, and I think that’s part of the problem, you can’t – when we’re dealing with a sixth of our economy and millions of people – you can’t do sound health insurance policy this way.’
‘You need to have extensive hearings,’ she added.
On Sunday, Cruz said he supported the way the Graham-Cassidy plan would mold Obamacare funding into block grants for the states, but he added that he wanted to see more changes, but didn’t elaborate.
He also suggested Republicans had more time on the clock than they thought.
‘September 30 is a bogus deadline,’ Cruz said. ‘We can do budget reconciliation or resolution at any point.’
Talking to reporters, Trump gave a ‘we’ll see what happens’ when asked if he would consider working with Democrats on a bipartisan health care bill.
The White House is expected to unveil the president’s tax reform plan this week.