Uh oh: Cruz, Lee, Paul and Johnson announce they will not vote for Senate health care bill

At least not in its current form.

, --June 22, 2017

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Three conservatives and a libertarian walk into a bar . . . ah, you've heard this one, I'm sure. This doesn't mean nothing will pass next week, but it means the exact bill released this morning by Senate Republicans will almost certainly not pass. As far as Cruz, Lee, Johnson and Paul are concerned, the senators drafting the bill gave too much in order to win the likes of Collins, Murkowski and Portman. If they want 50 votes, there's more work that will have to be done:
While the statement was not scathing, it said the current bill would not lower healthcare costs enough to win their support.
“Currently, for a variety of reasons, we are not ready to vote for this bill, but we are open to negotiation and obtaining more information before it is brought to the floor," the statement said. "There are provisions in this draft that represent an improvement to our current healthcare system but it does not appear this draft as written will accomplish the most important promise that we made to Americans: to repeal Obamacare and lower their healthcare costs.” "The early opposition of Senate conservatives is a blow to the bill but doesn’t mean it’s dead yet, even though Republicans control only 52 seats and can afford no more than two defections and still pass the measure.Conservatives want to pressure Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) to revise the legislation and move it further to the right. "McConnell is also under pressure from GOP centrists, creating a difficult balancing act for the leader. Each move he makes to one of the two sides risks losing support from the other. "Of the four conservatives, Paul has long been seen as the least likely to end up voting for the bill. The other lawmakers have been seen as more likely to get to "yes."
Of course. Rand Paul would vote to eliminate the entire federal government if he could, along with every criminal law in the United States. He's a libertarian. That's what they do. The challenge here is to get Cruz, Lee and Johnson on board without losing more than two moderates. The key is probably to address three areas:
  1. Speeding up the rollback of the ObamaCare Medicaid expansion.
  2. Tightening up or eliminating the continuation of premium subsidies.
  3. Lightening up on continued requirements of minimum benefits in health insurance policies.
All of the above would reduce the cost of health care overall, although the first two would also require more out-of-pocket spending for a lot of people, at least in the short term. That is actually how health care policy should work, but the American public has been trained to think that it's better if someone else is paying their bills, so it will be a challenge to sell it politically. If I had to guess, I'd say Cruz, Lee, Johnson, Collins and Murkowski hammer out some sort of deal between now and next week, and a bill passes, possibly with the need for Mike Pence to cast the tiebreaking vote. Rand Paul will vote no because he needs to be a "consistent" hero to his libertarian fans by voting against government involvement in absolutely anything. But that's just a guess. It's hard to imagine that after all this, these five won't find a way to prevent ObamaCare's survival. But you'll never go poor betting on Republican legislative failure.

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Dan Calabrese——

Dan Calabrese’s column is distributed by HermanCain.com, which can be found at HermanCain

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