Senate will not vote on Graham-Cassidy proposal

The Senate will not vote this week on a proposal by Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Bill Cassidy (R-LA), Dean Heller (R-NV) and Ron Johnson (R-WI) to repeal and replace parts of the Affordable Care Act, the proposal’s sponsors and Senate Republican leaders announced this afternoon. “The Graham-Cassidy proposal has had the same result as similar attempts to repeal parts of the Affordable Care Act because its enactment would have entailed similar consequences: devastating cuts to the Medicaid program, the loss of coverage for tens of millions of Americans, eliminated consumer protections for people with pre-existing conditions and destabilized insurance markets,” AHA President and CEO Rick Pollack said in a statement. “Instead of fixing the very real problems facing our health care system, this proposal would have only exacerbated them. As we stated following the Senate’s rejection of the ‘skinny repeal’ bill in July, the failure of this proposal shouldn’t be a victory for one side or a loss for the other, but rather a catalyst to spark meaningful solutions. Instead of once again pursuing a partisan path while expecting a different result, it is our hope that leaders from across the aisle will start to work together for the benefit of patients across America.” The Senate faced a Sept. 30 deadline to pass the bill with a simple majority under 2017 budget reconciliation rules. After that point, any ACA repeal legislation will require 60 votes in the Senate to move forward unless a new budget resolution, including repeal instructions, is passed for fiscal year 2018 or 2019. During a telephone press briefing this morning, Pollack; Sister Carol Keehan, president and CEO of the Catholic Health Association of the United States; and Atul Grover, M.D., executive vice president of the Association of American Medical Colleges, urged the Senate to reject the Graham-Cassidy-Heller-Johnson proposal. A preliminary analysis of the proposal released last night by the Congressional Budget Office found that the number of people “with comprehensive health insurance that covers high-cost medical events would be reduced by millions compared with the baseline projections for each year during the decade” 2017-2026.