Republicans try to pressure McCaskill, other Dems, on healthcare reform

Sept. 20--WASHINGTON -- Republicans are trying to put pressure on Senate Democrats to support a new version of GOP healthcare reform by arguing that some states, like Missouri, would benefit from a re-allocation of federal Medicaid funding under a block-grant proposal in the bill.

McCaskill, D-Mo., was alluded to, but not mentioned by name, by Sen. Lindsay Graham, R-S.C., in a press conference Tuesday pushing a bill Graham has sponsored with Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., and others.

Republicans are touting what has quickly become known as the "Graham-Cassidy" replacement to the Affordable Care Act as a "federalism" plan that gives states greater control of healthcare coverage and, theoretically, stretches healthcare dollars by largely bypassing the Obamacare bureaucracy.

Democrats deride it as "states rights," a subtle rhetorical twist that adds political toxicity. Democratic critics, some of whom have gotten behind Sen. Bernie Sanders' "Medicare for All" bill, say the new Republican plan is being pushed without adequate hearings. Those critics call it an attempt to mask big cuts in healthcare spending and force governors to make tough decisions to push millions off health insurance.

Ten governors -- five Republicans and five Democrats, but not Missouri's Eric Greitens -- came out Tuesday against the Graham-Cassidy bill.

Graham specifically singled out Missouri in saying how a vote against his bill would be a "tough no" for Democratic senators in states that did not expand Medicaid under Obamacare. In arguing for their plan, Graham and Cassidy have said their block-grant formula would divert what they say is disproportionate funding to New York, Massachusetts, Maryland and California to other states.

"Obamacare is failing for a reason," Graham told scores of reporters crammed in a hall outside the Senate chamber. "It's a bad idea. State control of health care will work because the people in charge will be accountable to you -- unlike Obamacare, where the person in charge could give a damn about what you think."

He said his bill is "uniquely Republican, but over time has proved to work in other areas, like welfare reform" -- a reference to those bipartisan reforms passed more than 20 years ago by Democratic President Bill Clinton and a Republican Congress.

Then, with Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., standing at his right shoulder, Graham brought up the Show Me State:

"I would hate to be a Democrat that voted against more money for my state, and kept the status quo. So if you are a Democrat -- let's say, in Missouri -- you are going to get more and more money in this proposal than Obamacare and your state would have more control over the money. To reject that money and that control means you believe that somebody in Washington cares more about people in Missouri, than people in Missouri."

McCaskill, one of 10 Democratic senators facing re-election next year in states Trump won, had already come out against the bill. Graham did not sway her.

"All this bill is is a bait-and-switch, in which they're trying to buy off certain states with promises of more money now, but with no guarantee that healthcare dollars in our state won't ultimately go down," she told the Post-Dispatch. "And that's to say nothing of the folks in Missouri who've been sick before and have a pre-existing condition, and older Missourians, who'll get slammed by this bill. If this proposal is such a good idea, why do healthcare advocates across the country -- along with several Republican governors -- oppose it?"

Her references were to Democrats' claims that the bill would allow states and insurers to charge higher premiums on older people and lessen protections for those with pre-existing conditions. Cassidy disputes those claims.

Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer responded equally sharply, saying of Republicans: "If the 2018 election is a referendum on 'Trump care,' they are going to get clobbered, and they know it."

He and other Democrats ridiculed Republicans for bringing up the bill on relatively short notice after returning from a months'-long recess. Republicans are trying to push it through the Senate before the end of the month to take advantage of legislative rules that would allow them to pass the bill with a simple majority before the end of the current fiscal year, Sept. 30.

That has left Democrats scrambling to rekindle the coalition that helped them defeat an earlier version of Republican reform in the Senate in July. Three Republicans -- Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz.; Susan Collins, R-Maine; and Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska -- then voted no.

"This is a rallying point," said Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., the second-ranking member of Democratic leadership in the Senate, of the Graham-Cassidy bill.

Durbin had earlier spoken at a rally outside the Capitol, sponsored by Planned Parenthood and MoveOn.org, to summon opposition before what could be another major vote showdown in the Senate next week.

Durbin gathered with Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., Schumer and other Democratic senators at a rally with all the trappings of rallying the left's base, with organizers handing out printed signs and pink abortion-rights t-shirts and urging the 100 or so attendees to contact Republican senators to oppose the new bill.

Durbin called the new measure "worse than any version (Republicans) have brought before," and used sports metaphors to urge the audience to "put up a fight."

Republicans say reform is necessary because Obamacare is collapsing from skyrocketing premiums and diminishing choices in many states, including Missouri.

But Blunt, who has endorsed Graham-Cassidy, has also long been a champion of "regular order" of hearings and debate in the Senate, and this latest attempt by Graham and Cassidy is not the product of that.

Blunt has also has worked with Democrats on some aspects of healthcare reform, including leading bipartisan efforts announced Tuesday to extend federal funding for community health clinics that could run out at the end of the month, that could be soured if the over-arching GOP is bill is passed on a narrow partisan vote.

Sens. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., and Patty Murray, D-Wash., are engaged in tentative bipartisan negotiations that would shore up problem areas of Obamacare, even though Blunt and others have declared it basically unfixable.

Efforts at that kind of bipartisanship -- "sprouts" is what Schumer called them -- would be destroyed if the Republicans pushed through Graham-Cassidy without hearings, or even a "score" on its costs and effect on insurance holders by the Congressional Budget Office, Schumer said.

Sanders' "Medicare for All" bill has been co-sponsored by about a third of the Democratic Senate caucus, and none of the St. Louis-area Democrats -- Durbin, McCaskill, and Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill. -- has signed onto it.

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell fiercely attacked Sanders' idea Tuesday as "a massive expansion of a failed idea" that would "quadruple down on the failures of Obamacare.

"It envisions what is basically a fully government-run 'single-payer' system -- the kind of system that would strip so many Americans of their health plans and take away so many decisions over their own health-care, that would require almost-unimaginably high tax increases, and that already collapsed in the Senator's home state when Vermont tried to implement it," McConnell said.

McCaskill has said she open to allowing people to buy into Medicare at age 55. Duckworth "broadly supports the goals of Medicare for all and a public option to provide increased competition in the healthcare marketplace," her office said in a statement. She said she is still studying Sanders' bill.

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