Why the Republican American Health Care Act (AHCA) Failed and Fell Apart

Senators Bill Cassidy (R-LA) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) rolled out new Affordable Care Act repeal legislation on Tuesday, just weeks in advance of the expiration of the budget reconciliation orders that would let Republicans pass a health bill with 50 votes.

Conservatives have described a single-payer insurance plan in grim terms, labeling it a massive government takeover of the country’s healthcare system that would strangle out individual choice.

In addition, the Graham-Cassidy bill would make deep cuts in Medicaid, putting the entire program on a budget and ending the open-ended entitlement that now exists. Still, opponents of government health care would be wise to notice what’s happening: Democrats are testing the waters by using a handful of blue states as the laboratories of democracy that they are.

Fifty-three percent of Republican said repealing and replacing the law should be an “extremely important priority”.

Like previous ACA repeal efforts, the bill doesn’t make large-scale changes to the ACA’s Section 1332 waiver process to increase state “flexibility” on ACA requirements.

“Bernie Sanders is introducing his Medicare-for-all bill”, said Sen.

The lawmakers said returning power to the states through federal funding of an equitable block grant system was essential, and would allow states to support programs that work or implement new options to expand coverage and lower premiums. Meanwhile, Democrat Bernie Sanders is proposing to expand Medicare to cover all US residents.

Graham and Cassidy’s proposal was not surrounded by fanfare.

“This is our last and best shot for the Republican Party to show that we have ideas and our ideas are better than the other side”, he said. Over the summer, Paul was critical of GOP leadership’s repeal-and-replace bill, advocating for a clean repeal of ObamaCare instead. Republicans have promised for seven years to repeal the Affordable Care Act, and “we refuse to quit”, he added.

The states would receive federal money in proportion to their population of poor people. The biggest question is whether Congress, which is quickly running out of time to enact a health care alternative – and, Suderman observes, whose Republican members have more or less accepted ObamaCare – has the guts to pursue and pass this structure.

Cassidy said Friday that the bill is supported by as many as 49 Republican senators.

Not all states would get the same amount of money as they would under Obamacare: States like California and NY would get less, but states like Virginia, Indiana, and Missouri would get more, Cassidy said.

The proposal won praise from President Donald Trump. I am not putting much faith in Graham-Cassidy making it through these hurdles in such a short timeframe after every other comprehensive health care bill over many months bit the dust.

Under the ACA, four states – New York, California, Massachusetts and Maryland – get 40 percent of the money from the ACA, Graham said. Both the Senate Majority Leaders office and the White House themselves have said that the votes are not just lined waiting to be cast.

The real debate on health care was never in the details of the Obama plan. Copayments would be allowed for prescription drugs. A special budget procedure that’s allowed them to approve the legislation with just 51 votes, instead of the usual 60, expires September 30.

Graham said, “He encouraged everybody to jump on board …”