As of this writing, the classic sausage making that is surrounding the House version of the Repeal and Replace Obamacare law is going at a feverish pace behind closed doors on Capitol Hill. The House leadership is scrambling to find a way to craft a bill that will be acceptable to conservatives and can still pass the Senate with 51 votes under reconciliation. According to the Washington Times, Sen Mike Lee, R-Utah may have found a way to save the bill from defeat.
The sticking point among conservatives is that the bill does not address some of the onerous regulations that have caused the premiums of individual health insurance to skyrocket. Those regulations have mandated, for example, that senior citizen men carry insurance for childbirth services. However, the conventional wisdom has been that provisions that repeal those regulations cannot be included in reconciliation in the Senate and therefore would need 60 votes which are considered impossible due to Democratic obstruction.
Sen. Lee consulted the Senate Parliamentarian about that very question. The answer he got was interesting and a game changer.
It seems that if the wording of the bill is crafted just so, it can remove the mandated services from insurance policies and still pass under reconciliation. That having been done, premiums on insurance policies will fall, and more people can afford to carry health insurance. Therefore, repeal and replace will have more conservative support and will pass the House.
That is the theory, anyway. Lee’s news has House Republicans doing things that greatly resembled what they decried just a few years ago when Obamacare was being foisted on the country. Legislative language is being written and rewritten at the last minute, and members are likely to be expected to vote on the bill with barely any time to read it.
Democrats, who pulled the same trick to pass health care reform, are naturally incensed.
Hypocritical? Of course, it is. But Obamacare has to be done away with, lest it collapse of its own weight, sowing chaos and suffering in its wake. In other words, the game of politics is proceeding apace.