25 June, 2017
Senate Republicans' efforts to pass a health-care reform bill created to undo major parts of the Affordable Care Act are facing push back from at least eight members of their own party.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has pledged to have a vote on the legislation before July 4.
To pass the Senate, with unanimous Democratic opposition expected, Republicans can only afford two defectors.
Sen. Susan Collins of ME reiterated her opposition to language blocking federal money for Planned Parenthood, which many Republicans oppose because it provides abortions.
"It's not that they're opposed", he said.
"I want to make sure that we prop up Medicaid to the degree that the federal government has given in the past and that has become an expectation for the state of Nevada", Heller said.
The U.S. House of Representatives' version of the Obamcare repeal bill includes a provision in which customers must maintain coverage or pay more, but Democrats argued that conflicted with Republican President Donald Trump's promise to keep the guaranteed insurance provision of Obamacare. The estimate was released Friday by Arizona's Medicaid agency, which analyzed the effects of the legislation on the state health insurance program for low-income people.
Senate Republicans are painting the new plan as less austere than the House bill which, according to a forecast by the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO), would leave 23 million fewer people insured than under current law. The Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, which also plays an important role in health care reform, has held more than a dozen.
Washington state officials say about 700,000 Washingtonians could lose health coverage under the Senate plan. Many Miami Valley lawmakers and health advocates have expressed concern over the proposal's potential impact on addiction, mental health and disability services.
The addition of the six-month waiting period to Senate's Better Care Act, however, could make it more hard for Republicans in the chamber to pass the measure with the budget reconciliation process.
"We have to act", McConnell said on the Senate floor Thursday, "because Obamacare is a direct attack on the middle class, and American families deserve better than its failing status quo". "It's about the character of our country - who we are, and who we aspire to be". It would repeal the ACA's individual mandate to purchase health insurance, make deep cuts to Medicaid and withhold federal funding to Planned Parenthood for a year.
Sen. Johnson has harshly criticized this aspect of the Affordable Care Act, saying it is wrong to force people to buy insurance, especially at rates and coverage levels they do not want.
Medicaid funding is at the heart of the protester's complaints. It would also slap annual spending caps on the overall Medicaid program, which since its inception in 1965 has provided states with unlimited money to cover eligible costs.
On Thursday, a number of New York Republican members of Congress praised the inclusion of the Faso-Collins Amendment in the Senate bill.
