Today, the Senate parliamentarian issued a
ruling on portions of Repeal & Replace that would require 60 votes to pass, else stricken from the bill. These provisions include all of the popular items conservatives wanted:
- Defunding Planned Parenthood.
- Abortion Restrictions for Tax Credits.
- Sunset of Essential Health Benefits Requirement for Medicaid.
- Funding for Cost-Sharing Subsidies.
- Stabilizing the Individual Insurance Markets ("Six Month Lock Out")
Effectively, this kills (really) Repeal & Replace while leaving the GOP with three choices:
- Reinstate their lawsuit against the CSRs. Doing so will create chaos across all of the healthcare industry, especially if their lawsuit succeeds. Similarly, Donald could carry through with his threat to actively kill the ACA by attrition. Both have dire political consequences, just in time for the 2018 midterms.
- Repeal and Wait. This will also incur dire political consequences, but it could be the opening Democrats need to create a single-payer (or similar) system.
- Seek bipartisanship. Ha! Even if Establishment GOP and moderates wanted bipartisanship, Donald's veto means no bill can pass without at least 19 Senate Republicans joining Democrats. Without those 19 identified ahead of time, Republicans won't even bother taking a vote that would place those members in jeopardy of being primaried.
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