Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell had grand plans for the Senate to vote on its version of a healthcare bill that would replace the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) prior to Congress’ 4th of July recess, but that never happened. We are well past the 4th of July now and there seems to be even less support for the Senate’s version of the healthcare bill than before the recess.
The latest defector is Sen. John Hoeven of North Dakota, who said July 6 that he could not support the Senate bill. There are now 10 senators who are opposed to the bill and no Democrats are in favor. This means the Republicans only have 42 votes they can count on and the Democrats now have 58 votes opposing, with the help of 10 Republicans which equals the bill’s failure. Even Vice President Mike Pence can’t come in and save the day for the Republicans. In addition to the 10 Republican senators opposed to the bill, four additional Republican senators have voice concerns about the bill and have not said they would vote yes, so yes votes could be down to potentially 38 at this point.
The more people learn about the Senate healthcare bill the more people seemingly dislike it. Despite McConnell’s intention of trying to get the bill passed before the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) could score the bill, reluctance from Republican Senators has provided the opportunity to the CBO to release how the bill could impact the American people. Here are some of the particulars of the CBO’s report:
- The CBO estimated that 22 million more people would lose health insurance by 2026 if the Senate bill was passed into law.
- Another highlight of the CBO’s report was that premiums could drastically increase for low-income people as well as people who are nearing retirement age.
- Subsidies to help low-income people purchase health insurance would also be much less than what Obamacare offers and extreme deductibles would cause many families to lose any interest in purchasing health insurance because it would not be cost effective.
- Medicaid, the government healthcare program for the poor would be reduced by 26 percent by 2026.
These are just some of the larger obstacles to passage this bill faces, but there are many small ones. To take a closer look at the CBO’s report click here.
