GOP turns gloomy over Obamacare repeal
Senate Republicans leave for recess uncertain they can craft a plan that improves on the House bill and gets 50 votes.
By BURGESS EVERETT and JENNIFER HABERKORN 05/25/2017 06:27 PM EDT
A feeling of pessimism is settling over Senate Republicans as they head into a weeklong Memorial Day recess with deeply uncertain prospects for their push to repeal Obamacare.
Senators reported that they’ve made little progress on the party’s most intractable problems this week, such as how to scale back Obamacare's Medicaid expansion and overall Medicaid spending. Republicans are near agreement on making tax credits for low-income, elderly Americans more generous, but that might be the simplest matter at hand.
Republicans have started writing the very basics of their repeal legislation, even though they've made few decisions about what it will say. Staffers will work on the bill over the break to try to increase the pace of negotiations, as well as haggle with the Senate parliamentarian over whether the chamber can even consider the bill because of procedural reasons. But in the meantime, frustrations are rising and confidence is diminishing.
“We talk about it every goddamn day,” said one GOP senator, who did not want to be quoted criticizing his own party. “But we haven’t done anything about it.”
Senators privately reported being surprised by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s assessment on Wednesday that he doesn’t know how the party gets the requisite 50 of the party’s 52 members on board. Though aides said McConnell was restating the challenge of passing a bill in a sharply divided conference, senators said they also did not take the calculating majority leader’s words as a vote of confidence.
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http://www.politico.com/story/2017/05/25/gop-obamacare-repeal-senate-recess-gloom-238839
