Over at the Washington Post, Paige Winfield Cunningham writes about the united effort of doctors’ groups to oppose Trumpcare:
They don’t think the present law is perfect by any means, but they’re deeply worried about the Senate health-care bill’s deep Medicaid cuts — that is, what that would mean for the ability of low-income families to receive care — and how the bill provides a pathway for states to opt out of its mandatory essential health benefits.
….[The lobbyists] said they didn’t meet with McConnell or anybody on his leadership team — which has been holding their own heart-to-hearts with moderate senators, trying to convince them to vote for the bill even with the Medicaid cuts intact. Here’s what McConnell has told several hesitant senators (including Portman and Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.): The bill’s deepest Medicaid cuts are far into the future, and they’ll never go into effect anyway.
“He’s trying to sell the pragmatists like Portman, like Capito on ‘the CPI-U will never happen,’ ” a GOP lobbyist and former Hill staffer told me.
Vote for our bill because it will never really go into effect anyway. I’m sold! Where do I sign up?
It’s worth noting that even if McConnell is right, that doesn’t change anybody’s reelection calculus for 2018. They can hardly campaign on the proposition that all the bad stuff in the bill they voted for will probably never happen. Versions of ads showing Republicans pushing granny off a cliff are going to be on television 24/7 regardless.
The GOP’s best bet at this point is to let health care go and move on to tax cuts. They all agree about tax cuts, don’t they?
