Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said Sunday the Republican healthcare fight will continue regardless of what happens this week on an Obamacare overhaul bill he sponsored.
Graham, who noted he was on the Budget Committee, said on ABC’s “This Week” he “will not vote for a budget resolution that doesn’t allow the healthcare debate to continue.” Republicans had planned to use the budget resolution for fiscal year 2018 on tax reform, a top priority for President Trump.
Graham’s healthcare bill, sponsored along with GOP Sens. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, Dean Heller of Nevada and Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, would transfer Obamacare’s revenue to states in the form of block grants. It also would repeal the individual and employer mandates.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has said he intends to bring the bill to the floor for a vote early this week. Two Republican senators have said they oppose the bill, including Rand Paul of Kentucky and John McCain of Arizona. If one more Republican and all Democrats vote against the bill then it will fail; GOP Sen. Susan Collins of Maine has said she is concerned about the legislation and said it was difficult to envision voting for it.
Various healthcare groups, including the American Medical Association, the American Hospital Association and America’s Health Insurance Plans, which represents insurers, have publicly opposed the bill’s passage.
Graham brushed off the lack of support from insurance companies.
“I would have been surprised if these people were for our bill because we take money away from them and we give it to state governments to design systems that will deliver a better outcome,” he said. Graham and other Republicans have come out more strongly against Democrats in recent weeks after 16 of them backed a bill introduced by Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., which would shift every American onto Medicare into a government-funded and federally-run healthcare system.
“I’ve come to the conclusion that Obamacare is a placeholder for Berniecare and the Democratic world,” Graham said. “The best you could hope for is to prop up Obamacare because they are moving toward Berniecare.”
He and Cassidy, who also appeared on “This Week,” also urged change to the heathcare system as insurers plan to increase premiums for Obamacare’s unsubsidized customers for 2018. The increases come in light of uncertainty over how the Trump administration will carry out Obamacare, and following insurer losses on the exchange in past years.
Critics of the Graham-Cassidy bill have said they worry about people with pre-existing illnesses not having access to affordable coverage, as states would be the ones deciding how to handle paying for them, such as through the creation of a high-risk pool. Cassidy countered Sunday he did not view Obamacare as affordable for patients with pre-existing illnesses.
“What we have under status quo is that a person with a child who has pre-existing conditions is paying $32,000 a year,” Cassidy said, referring to the combined cost of premiums and deductibles. “That’s not affordable.”
Graham said he still remains optimistic that Republicans will be able to pass the overhaul bill but said if it fails, he wanted people to know that “I did everything I could to get money and power out of Washington, to give you better healthcare closer to where you live and I’m not going to stop fighting.”
