Now that Trumpcare has been delivered to Mitch McConnell for its trip through the Senate, everything becomes much, much slower than the whirlwind ride we've just seen. There are predictions that consideration of this deeply flawed, insurance-shrinking bill, could take a month. Or maybe four months. Let's say six to eight weeks. In trump time such delay is unacceptable. Cons cannot be successful if people have time to think.
Why so little celebration?
There are reasons the Senate needs time to think. There are rules about budget reconciliation and as we should know by now Trump skirted this issue.
How did he do it? By seeing that hs most recent effort to kill Obamacare did not suffer examination by the Congressional Budget Office. Unfortunately for him, the Senate cannot proceed without clearance from the CBO. The prospects of a clean go-ahead from CBO are close to nil. Trump could be royally euchred by allowing yet another wildly defective bill, sans budget review, to be steam-rollered yesterday. That may be a reason why his celebration of it was relatively muted.
More difficulties
There are more Senate delays in prospect. A big issue raised by the most recent iteration of Trumpcare is its continued insistence on shrinking Medicaid. If anything sinks Trumpcare this seems to be the best candidate.
The bill could be sunk merely because it makes insurance unavailable to as many as 24 million. It could be done in because no medical authority beyond a few GOP doctors says a good word for it. But shrinking Medicaid does not sit well with a handful of Senate Republicans whose states had the good sense to accept federal support to let Medicaid grow.
Senator Portman is in that group and he has made his reservations clear. There are enough Senators who are affected to make the bill tank.
The entire Trump problem
Can Donald Trump work the con in the Senate? Here is a possible theory about that. This whole matter relates to the entire Trump problem. Russia, conflict of interest, family ties, tax returns.
Unless Democrats are gagged, they will make these issues part of the healthcare debate. They will play on the disastrous political consequences of supporting the unpopular president. The result may be a growing sense that Trumpcare is the Titanic. A fantastic journey about to be sunk in the cold North Atlantic sea. Trump's hands are not exactly tied, but maybe he will think twice about pushing the Senators. The choice is to keep the impeachment and get-rid-of-Trump fires alive or shut the door on them completely in a potentially suicidal act of loyalty. The proper reaction to that question is "Ouch!"
