Republican senators John McCain, Lindsey Graham, Ron Johnson, and Bill Cassidy told reporters Thursday afternoon that they despise the idea of a “skinny” Obamacare repeal bill—but that they would vote for it on the condition health reform ends up being negotiated further between the House and Senate.
The scaled-back legislation expected has been described as a “lowest common denominator” approach, killing some parts of Obamacare that are the most unpopular, including the individual and employer mandates, but not going much further. The particulars of such an approach appeared to be taking shape up to the last minute Thursday.
“The skinny bill as policy is a disaster. The skinny bill as a replacement for Obamacare is a fraud.” Graham said. “The policy is terrible …You’re going to have increased premiums and most of Obamacare stays in place if the skinny bill becomes law.”
To make matters worse, the senators said, a partial repeal of Obamacare makes the GOP own its failure.
“I’d rather get out of the way and let it collapse than have a half-assed approach where it is now our problem,” Graham said. “We’re not going to do that with our vote.”
But the solution, the senators argued, is not to slow the process and get a workable bill to stamp with approval in the Senate. Salvation rather lies in a conference committee, where the House and Senate could potentially hash out a compromise acceptable to both chambers together. The House passed its version of Obamacare “repeal and replace” earlier this year, and the Senate is currently working off of that legislation—though it’s trimming it back significantly.
Graham also reasoned that approving a bill would give the Congressional Budget Office time to evaluate proposals that he and other colleagues have offered. Every amendment must get a score from the CBO in order for it to be considered eligible for the “budget reconciliation” process the upper chamber is using in consideration of health reform. Reconciliation permits simple majority approval of legislation rather than 60 votes needed to overcome a filibuster—crucial, since Republicans have only 52 seats.
“The pitch is, if you vote for this skinny bill, then we can go to conference. Then we can get [a proposal from Graham and Cassidy] scored, we can get Ted Cruz’s bill scored, we can get other people’s bills scored that have the promise of maybe bringing us together,” Graham said. “That makes eminent sense to me, with one condition: We actually go to conference.”
Graham cited the perspective of House Freedom Caucus chairman Mark Meadows: “Sen. Graham quoting Mark Meadows saying skinny repeal is DOA in the House as is — he is correct,” Meadows’s spokeswoman tweeted Thursday. “Mark Meadows agreed the skinny bill would be dead on arrival in the House,” Graham quoted from a Washington Post story, “but he understands that it’s just a vehicle for a conference.”
But Meadows himself said Thursday he doesn’t “necessarily anticipate a conference committee,” instead favoring that the Senate continue working.
