Commentary: Rushed Senate Consideration of Cassidy-Graham Would Be Designed to Hide Bill’s Severe Flaws
By
Congressional
Several senators, including Senators Cassidy and Graham, criticized the House earlier this year for rushing a bill that its members didn't fully understand and in a process that wasn't transparent. And several senators acknowledged after the
Yet Senators Cassidy and Graham and their counterparts appear set to take the exact approach they criticized, precisely in order to hide the bill's damaging impact on coverage, consumer costs, and consumer protections. Cassidy-Graham is in many ways as bad as -- or worse than -- previous repeal bills that have failed to pass
Senate Can Pick Up Where It Left Off in July
When Senate Majority Leader
As of
Bill Can Become Law Without Comprehensive CBO Analysis of Its Impact on Coverage and Costs
In order to be considered under reconciliation rules, the Cassidy-Graham bill must be analyzed by CBO to ensure that it reduces the deficit in both its first decade and afterwards. (The bill's large cuts to health coverage in the near term and its even deeper cuts in the long term virtually guarantee that it would clear this bar.) In addition, the parliamentarian would have to rule that the bill complies with other aspects of the so-called Byrd rule, which governs what kinds of legislation the
But CBO has made clear[5] it will not have an opportunity to provide estimates of the bill's full impact on coverage and costs before the
Such a CBO report would likely illustrate the ways that the bill's cuts --
This approach of voting without a full CBO analysis would be similar to the only other vote so far this year that has advanced a repeal bill: the House's passage of the
In fact, concerns about the MacArthur amendment led
As with the House vote on the
House Almost Certainly Couldn't Amend Bill
In every step of the ACA repeal process to date, repeal proponents have promised that a bill can be fixed later in the process so long as it moves forward. House members promised that the
Even though the current version of Cassidy-Graham is the most poorly understood of any repeal bill that
In practice, that means the House would almost certainly face the prospect of a straight up-or-down vote on a repeal bill that has not been fully analyzed for its impact on the health of millions of people. Moreover,
Footnotes:
[1] See "Statement by Senator
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[6] "VERIFIED: MacArthur and Upton Amendments Strengthen AHCA, Protect People with Pre-Existing Conditions," Speaker
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Cassidy-Graham Plan’s Damaging Cuts to Health Care Funding Would Grow Dramatically in 2027
Like Other ACA Repeal Bills, Cassidy-Graham Plan Would Add Millions to Uninsured, Destabilize Individual Market
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