Take Two On The Senate Health Care Bill

Published July 17, 2017 at 9:00 AM CDT

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Ky. leaves the Senate chamber on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday, July 13, 2017, after announcing the revised version of the Republican health care bill. (J. Scott Applewhite/AP)

The Senate GOP’s revised health care bill. We’ll unpack what’s in it, and where it goes from here.

A two-inch blood clot above John McCain’s left eye stood between Senate Republicans and a new American health care path this weekend. Senator McCain’s got coverage. He’s had surgery. But Republicans couldn’t pass their bill without him, and the vote’s been postponed again. Mitch McConnell is ready to make deals. The GOP desperately wants to be seen to repeal Obamacare. But resistance is stiff. Including Republican resistance. This hour On Point: What’s in the Senate GOP health care package. — Tom Ashbrook

Guests

Noam Levey, national health care reporter for the Los Angeles Times. ( @NoamLevey)

Jonathan Cohn, senior national correspondent for HuffPost. Author of “ Sick: The Untold Story of America’s Health Care Crisis – and the People Who Pay the Price.”( @CitizenCohn)

Larry Van Horn, associate professor of management and executive director of health affairs at the Owen Graduate School of Management at Vanderbilt University.

From Tom’s Reading List

The Los Angeles Times: Divided Senate Republicans Unveil New Version of Obamacare Repeal Bill — “The new version — which represents Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s latest bid to unite his fractious caucus — would still enact historic cuts in federal healthcare assistance to low- and moderate-income Americans and fundamentally scale back Medicaid’s half-century-old guarantee of health coverage for the poor.”

HuffPost: New Health Care Bill Proves GOP Promises On Pre-Existing Conditions Were Never Serious — “Cruz has presented his amendment as a compromise, in part because it would require insurers to keep offering some plans that comply with the existing regulations. And the overall impact of the proposal remains difficult to determine precisely, because analysts are scrambling to see how the different pieces, including a special fund to help people with more serious medical problems, fit together.”

CNN:Health Care: Will Moderate Republicans Sink The Bill? — “McConnell expects a new CBO score next week on the new underlying bill. The CBO score always can move opinions, and last time around, it did not help — the non-partisan agency predicted that the Republican proposal would result in 22 million more people becoming uninsured by 2026 than under Obamacare. Some Republicans have expressed concern that a score on Cruz’s amendment won’t be finished by early next week, however. In that case, members may have to rely on analysis from HHS or OMB for the Cruz amendment.”