Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., in an attempt to woo holdouts, is changing the healthcare bill to add $45 billion in spending to fight opioid abuse and to allow health savings accounts to be used to toward premiums, according to a source familiar with the matter.
The changes come less than a day after McConnell met with key centrist holdouts on the bill, including Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va. Capito said on her way to McConnell’s office that she wanted $45 billion in opioid funding in addition to lifting a proposed cap on Medicaid’s growth rate.
In addition to the opioid money, the bill includes changes for health savings accounts that would allow the tax-free vehicles, which currently can be used to pay for out of pocket medical expenses, to go toward paying premiums. The HSA change is expected to reduce revenues by about $60 billion over the next decade.
Taken together, the changes would cut the deficit reduction in the bill by about $105 billion.
That still leaves McConnell with about $100 billion more to go toward convincing additional Senators to get to “yes,” unless he wants to scale back repeal of Obamacare’s taxes.
McConnell cannot afford to lose more than two senators, because he needs at least 50 votes to pass a healthcare bill.
