Graham-Cassidy Is Dead, and Obamacare Is Alive

Republicans won’t vote on repealing Obamacare. For now.

Ulrich Stamm/ZUMA

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Republicans are giving up on their latest effort to repeal Obamacare. During their caucus lunch Tuesday afternoon, Republican leaders decided that the bill, known as Graham-Cassidy, will not be brought up for a vote this week. “We’ve made the decision since we don’t have the votes, we’ll postpone that vote,” Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) said Tuesday. That puts an end to GOP’s hopes for repealing the Affordable Care Act and gutting Medicaid—at least for the moment.

Republicans faced a September 30 deadline if they wanted to use a procedure called reconciliation, which would allow the Senate to avoid a Democratic filibuster and pass a bill with only 50 votes. But while Graham-Cassidy is dead for the moment, Republicans could still revive the proposal—or pursue a different Obamacare replacement—by including reconciliation in their 2018 budget, which several GOP senators are already calling for. But keeping the reconciliation option open for 2018 would force Republicans to tackle health care and tax reform together, which would make the already complex tax debate even more difficult.

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We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

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