The Senate’s way forward on health care is still uncertain, but majority leader Mitch McConnell said Wednesday that the upper chamber will take a procedural vote on at least something next week.
“It’s pretty obvious we’ve had difficulty getting 50 votes to proceed” to formal consideration of Obamacare repeal legislation, the Kentucky Republican told reporters after a meeting at the White House. “But what I want to disabuse any of you of is the notion that we will not have that vote next week. We’re going to vote on the motion to proceed to the bill next week.”
Which bill? Who knows. The upper chamber’s majority failed to cobble together enough senators to advance either the original version of the Better Care Reconciliation Act or an amended one. That opened the door to taking up 2015 “repeal-and-delay” legislation that each house of Congress approved before it was vetoed by President Obama. But three Republican senators, Shelly Moore Capito, Susan Collins, and Lisa Murkowski, announced their opposition to the fallback plan.
McConnell said he favors the first path in some way, but was open to both.
“There is a large majority in our conference that want to demonstrate to the American people that they intend to keep the commitment they made in four straight elections to repeal Obamacare. I think we all agree it’s better to both repeal and replace. But we could have a vote on either,” he said. “And if we end up voting on repeal only, it will be fully amendable on the Senate floor. And if it were to pass without any amendment at all, there’s a two-year delay before it kicks in.”
The majority leader added there is “no harm done” merely by getting to the amendment process on a measure—the modest goal of a process that began months ago with grand ambitions.
Two Republicans in the White House meeting Wednesday provided dissimilar takes on its outcome. Senator Lindsey Graham, who has stuck with McConnell throughout the Senate process, said “the gap has been closed in terms of member objections,” but lawmakers remained short of agreement. Senator Rand Paul, who has been the Better Care Act’s stingiest objector, told Fox News the gathering “largely focused on going back to the insurance bailout bill, the one that’s been talked about for the last couple weeks.” Such an idea concerns the continuance of Obamacare’s cost-sharing payments to insurers, and assuredly would net more Democratic backers than Republicans.
