http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/332025-senate-gop-vows-big-changes-for-obamacare-bill
Senate Republicans plan to dramatically overhaul the House obamacrap repeal bill that passed Thursday and are warning the process could take weeks.
The House bill, the American Health Care Act, has raised an array of concerns among Senate Republicans, chiefly among lawmakers from swing states who are opposed to the cap on ObamaCare’s Medicaid expansion that would take effect in 2020.
GOP senators are also troubled by analyses that the legislation would significantly cut federal subsidies for people between the ages of 50 and 65, especially in rural areas such as Maine, Montana, Nebraska and North Carolina.
Senate Republican Whip John Cornyn (R-Texas) announced Thursday that there would no “arbitrary deadlines” for the healthcare legislation, setting up an open-ended process.
“We’re going through the issues methodically,” he said. “The House passing the bill gives us a little bit more of a sense of urgency but it’s going to take a while.”
Senate Republicans say the bill in its current form cannot pass, and some of them privately question whether it will ever get a floor vote. There’s also skepticism in the conference that they will be able to cobble together 51 votes behind any plan.
“I think it needs a lot of improvement,” said Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.), who is concerned about the Medicaid provisions, said about the House bill.
West Virginia has been one of the biggest beneficiaries under ObamaCare’s Medicaid expansion, with 175,000 new people signing up under the law’s more generous guidelines as of 2015.
Capito said she is also worried about the reductions in subsidies for older, less affluent people under the House plan.
For example, a person who is 60 years old earning $30,000 a year in Kanawha County, W.Va., would see a subsidy reduction of nearly $9,000 a year under the House proposal.
Sens. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) and Dean Heller (R-Nev.), two Republicans who have sounded the alarm about the potential Medicaid rollback, issued statements Thursday afternoon opposing the House bill.
Portman said he doesn’t support the measure “because I continue to have concerns that this bill does not do enough to protect Ohio’s Medicaid expansion population.”
Portman said on Wednesday that he would like to see “a longer runway” for reforming Medicaid instead of abruptly capping the program two and a half years in the future.
Heller said “the current bill falls short” and said “we cannot pull the rug out from under states like Nevada that expanded Medicaid.”
The House bill could also face resistance from some of the Senate’s most conservative members.
Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) said that while changes to the legislation insisted on by members of the House Freedom Caucus improved the legislation, he’s still not satisfied.
"I really frankly am not too excited about subsidizing the profit of insurance companies," Paul told Fox News in an interview Thursday.
Senate Republicans plan to dramatically overhaul the House obamacrap repeal bill that passed Thursday and are warning the process could take weeks.
The House bill, the American Health Care Act, has raised an array of concerns among Senate Republicans, chiefly among lawmakers from swing states who are opposed to the cap on ObamaCare’s Medicaid expansion that would take effect in 2020.
GOP senators are also troubled by analyses that the legislation would significantly cut federal subsidies for people between the ages of 50 and 65, especially in rural areas such as Maine, Montana, Nebraska and North Carolina.
Senate Republican Whip John Cornyn (R-Texas) announced Thursday that there would no “arbitrary deadlines” for the healthcare legislation, setting up an open-ended process.
“We’re going through the issues methodically,” he said. “The House passing the bill gives us a little bit more of a sense of urgency but it’s going to take a while.”
Senate Republicans say the bill in its current form cannot pass, and some of them privately question whether it will ever get a floor vote. There’s also skepticism in the conference that they will be able to cobble together 51 votes behind any plan.
“I think it needs a lot of improvement,” said Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.), who is concerned about the Medicaid provisions, said about the House bill.
West Virginia has been one of the biggest beneficiaries under ObamaCare’s Medicaid expansion, with 175,000 new people signing up under the law’s more generous guidelines as of 2015.
Capito said she is also worried about the reductions in subsidies for older, less affluent people under the House plan.
For example, a person who is 60 years old earning $30,000 a year in Kanawha County, W.Va., would see a subsidy reduction of nearly $9,000 a year under the House proposal.
Sens. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) and Dean Heller (R-Nev.), two Republicans who have sounded the alarm about the potential Medicaid rollback, issued statements Thursday afternoon opposing the House bill.
Portman said he doesn’t support the measure “because I continue to have concerns that this bill does not do enough to protect Ohio’s Medicaid expansion population.”
Portman said on Wednesday that he would like to see “a longer runway” for reforming Medicaid instead of abruptly capping the program two and a half years in the future.
Heller said “the current bill falls short” and said “we cannot pull the rug out from under states like Nevada that expanded Medicaid.”
The House bill could also face resistance from some of the Senate’s most conservative members.
Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) said that while changes to the legislation insisted on by members of the House Freedom Caucus improved the legislation, he’s still not satisfied.
"I really frankly am not too excited about subsidizing the profit of insurance companies," Paul told Fox News in an interview Thursday.
