As the Obamacare Repeal and Replace debate moves to the Senate, the question arises over how much of the House bill should be included if at all. According to the Washington Examiner, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas has a bill that should take care of the matter once and for all, bypassing the three-stage process that the House leadership has been following. Moreover, Cruz believes that his approach will pass under reconciliation, meaning that it doesn’t need Democratic support.
The Cruz bill includes the purchase of health insurance across state lines, the expansion of association health plan, malpractice tort reform, and health savings accounts.
It removes the taxes and mandates imposed by Obamacare and takes care of the sick and people with preexisting conditions with high-risk pools subsidized by the government.
Cruz believes that his bill will pass under reconciliation rules because the provisions reduce premiums and thus has a budgetary impact. He has been working like a beaver with the other members of the 13 Senator health care working group to pass a bill that is real repeal and replace, institutes free market reforms, and that can pass both houses of Congress without Democratic support.
If Cruz pulls it off, he will have defied conventional wisdom that all the Republicans can accomplish is a kind of Obamacare light that will avoid a lot of the excesses that are inherent in the original affordable care act.
He has a lot of hurdles to overcome, not the least of which will be to persuade most of the GOP caucuses in each house to follow his lead.
But, doesn’t a bill have to pass muster with the Senate Parliamentarian to be considered under reconciliation rules? Previously, Cruz, a Harvard-trained lawyer, suggested that a provision of the 1974 Budget Act allows the vice president, as the president of the Senate, to determine reconciliation questions.
Vice President Mike Pence would certainly see things Cruz’s way and allow his version of repeal and replace to pass with 51 votes as the Democrats howl in protest.
Obamacare repeal and replace has had a bumpy path up until now, with two versions having failed to pass the House before a third squeaked by. But if Cruz succeeds in what he is trying to do, Obamacare, all of it, will be on the ash heap of history by the end of the year.
Fears that halting efforts to get rid of the Affordable Care Act will inevitably lead to a single-payer, government run health care system will not be realized. Not coincidentally, Cruz will become a world-historical figure as the man who saved Private Health Care in America and buried a large part of the Obama legacy.