Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid’s office declared Thursday that the GOP cannot repeal Obamacare’s core mandates without 60 votes.
In a memo to “interested parties,” the Nevada Democrat’s staff said the Republican claim that they can use the budget reconciliation process to gut the Affordable Care Act through a technical fix is “simply false.”
Senate Republicans are planning as early as next week to bring legislation to the floor that would repeal the health care law through the special budget process requiring only 51 votes for passage, instead of the typical 60.
Earlier this week, Republicans said they could take up a House-passed reconciliation bill that repeals both the employer and individual mandate, despite a warning by Senate Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough that such a move would run afoul of Senate rules governing the reconciliation process. Senate GOP leaders said MacDonough’s concerns could be addressed through an amendment, to “fix any technical changes,” that would make the mandate repeal compliant with the Senate rules.
But Reid’s office said in Thursday’s memo that he disagrees with the GOP.
“While Republicans may be able to make narrowly tailored changes that primarily have a budgetary effect, any fix that repeals the individual or employer mandates will require 60 votes and therefore will not pass,” the memo said. “The Senate is not the House of Representatives. Based on the Parliamentarian’s ruling, the Senate reconciliation bill will have to be more supportive of Obamacare’s mandates than the House-passed bill. There is no way around this simple fact.”
A spokesman for Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., rejected Reid’s interpretation.
“There will be a Senate amendment that preserves the intent of the House-passed bill, while ensuring that the underlying bill complies with rules that apply only in the Senate,” McConnell spokesman Don Stewart told the Washington Examiner. “The fact that it took Dems two days to come up with a memo that says there will have to be changes made (something said on Tuesday) should tell you something.”
Republicans have been promising that a GOP-led Congress would repeal Obamacare since it was signed into law in 2010. Passage of a repeal measure would be a major achievement for the party, even though it faces a certain veto from President Obama that Republicans do not have the numbers to override.
Since Senate Republicans control 54 votes and the measure has already passed the House, using the reconciliation process would practically assure the GOP could finally send a repeal bill to Obama’s desk.
The parliamentarian will have the final say on whether Republicans can use reconciliation to clear the House-passed repeal measure.
