Trump wants one last Senate push on Obamacare repeal
The odds are slim, but the White House still hopes for action on a bill drafted by Lindsey Graham and Bill Cassidy
By BURGESS EVERETT and JOSH DAWSEY 09/05/2017 06:17 PM EDT
President Donald Trump and some Senate Republicans are refusing to give up on Obamacare repeal, even after this summer’s spectacular failure and with less than a month before a key deadline.
The president and White House staff have continued to work with Republican Sens. Lindsey Graham of South Carolijna and Bill Cassidy of Louisiana over the summer on their proposal to block grant federal health care funding to the states. And though the bill is being rewritten and Congress faces a brutal September agenda, Trump and his allies on health care are making a last-gasp effort.
“He wants to do it, the president does. He loves the block grants. But we’ve got to have political support outside Washington,” Graham said in an interview. He said the bill needs to have a “majority of the Republican governors behind the idea” to gain momentum in the Senate. But there’s far more work to do even than that. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell would need to find room on the packed calendar this month to hold another uncertain push to repeal Obamacare on party lines. The Senate has only until the end of the month to pass the measure using powerful budget reconciliation procedures, but is also planning to fund the government, raise the debt ceiling, write a new defense policy bill and extend a host of expiring programs.
Cassidy said he hopes to have the bill text finalized by this week and has declined to reveal details about what changed in the bill during August. “We are still refining the legislative language — just things you got to clear up,” he said. “We think we have good legislation, good policy.”
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http://www.politico.com/story/2017/09/05/trump-obamacare-repeal-senate-242346?lo=ap_b1
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