GOP sends mixed messages on the future of American healthcare after suffering a blistering defeat in the Obamacare repeal effort
Sonam Sheth
Donald Trump
(President Donald Trump has given mixed messages on what he wants the future of the American healthcare system to look like.AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
The Republican Party appears to be sending differing signals following the collapse of Senate GOP efforts to overhaul the Affordable Care Act, the healthcare law better known as Obamacare.
President Donald Trump has, in recent days, ramped up calls for the Senate to vote on healthcare before considering any other legislation.
"Don't give up Republican Senators, the World is watching: Repeal & Replace ... and go to 51 votes (nuke option), get Cross State Lines & more," Trump tweeted Sunday morning.
He tweeted on Saturday: "Unless the Republican Senators are total quitters, Repeal & Replace is not dead! Demand another vote before voting on any other bill!"
Mick Mulvaney, the White House budget director, doubled down on Trump's stance on CNN's "State of the Union" on Sunday.
When host Jake Tapper asked whether it was the White House's official policy that no other legislation proceed until the Senate moves on healthcare, Mulvaney replied affirmatively and said the president was "simply reflecting the mood of the people."
"Go and poll the American public and find out what the most important issue is to them right now, and it's healthcare," Mulvaney said. "So, in the White House's view, they can't move on in the Senate."
Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price also emphasized the administration's stance that Obamacare was "failing" and should be done away with immediately.
Trump has repeatedly switched his position on the future of Obamacare, however, and on the timing of it. He has both called for the law to stay so it can "implode" and urged congressional Republicans to repeal it and replace it.
When asked on ABC's "This Week" about Trump's wavering opinions on Obamacare, Price said the president was concerned about "getting this moved in the right direction."
'Are you going to help it implode or try to fix it?'
John McCain voting no
(John McCain gave the thumbs down in the Senate early Friday morning, becoming the crucial 51st vote that killed the Senate's "skinny repeal" healthcare bill.Screenshot/CNN)
But the Senate is unlikely to arrive at a compromise unless concessions are made on all sides, including opposing factions within the Republican Party.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell last week failed to pass three variations of Obamacare repeal, the third miss coming when three Republican senators joined all 48 members of the Democratic caucus in voting against the so-called skinny repeal of Obamacare.
One of those Republican senators, Susan Collins of Maine, told Tapper "the ball is really in our court right now" when it comes to delivering a more stable insurance system for the American people.
Collins, who opposed the GOP proposals to repeal Obamacare because of their deep cuts to Medicaid and defunding of Planned Parenthood, acknowledged that the ACA had "serious problems."
"So our job is not done ... We need to go back to committee, to the health committee, and the Finance Committee, identify the problems, carefully evaluate possible solutions through hearings, and then produce a series of bills to correct these problems, the most serious of which is the pending collapse of the insurance markets," Collins said.
She added: "And I certainly hope the administration does not do anything in the meantime to hasten that collapse."
Tom Price
(Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price.Joshua Roberts/Getty Images)
"This Week" host Martha Raddatz pointed that possibility out to Price, saying his department had the power to internally undermine Obamacare by stopping insurer subsidies and not enforcing the individual mandate that people have health insurance or pay a penalty.
"So are you going to help it implode or try to fix it?" Raddatz asked Price.
Price responded by criticizing Obamacare and said HHS would "look at every single one" of the law's rules and regulations to determine whether they drive up costs and "hurt patients."
"And when it drives up costs and hurts patients, we're going to move in the other direction," Price said.
Raddatz again touched on Trump's comments about allowing the Affordable Care Act to collapse. "Is what the president is proposing, letting the existing system fail, putting the needs of patients first?" Raddatz asked Price.
"The system has failed," Price said. "That's what the president's saying, and that's why he is demanding that Congress act."
Collins said that while Trump's threats would not affect her vote on healthcare, "it's an example of why we need to act to make sure that those payments, which are not an insurance-company bailout but rather help people who are very low-income afford their out-of-pocket costs towards their deductibles and their co-pays."
susan collins
(Sen. Susan Collins of Maine was one of three Republicans to vote against the GOP repeal plan.Alex Wong/Getty Images)
In the end, she said, cutting off bailouts would not hurt insurance companies themselves as much as "some of the most vulnerable citizens" whose care could be affected.
"We're talking about low-income Americans who would be devastated if those payments were cut off, though the threat to cut off those payments has contributed to the instability in the insurance market," Collins added.
Mulvaney said Trump's tweets aimed at insurance companies and members of Congress were done to try to hold lawmakers accountable for their actions — or lack thereof — on healthcare reform.
"What he's saying is, look, if Obamacare is hurting people — and it is — then why shouldn't it hurt insurance companies and, more important perhaps for this discussion, members of Congress?" Mulvaney told Tapper. "There is a certain benefit that members of Congress get as part of an OPM decision from a couple of years ago. And I think the president is simply looking at this and going, is this fair?"
He added that Trump's tweets were an approach to oblige congressional lawmakers to follow "the exact law that the folks that they govern are following."
Working with Democrats
Bernie Sanders
(Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont at an anti-"Trumpcare" rally in Washington, DC, on May 4.Alex Wong/Getty Images)
Regardless of the outcome, Republicans seem to be coming to the realization that they'll need to work across the aisle to move forward on healthcare.
Indeed, Republican Sen. David Perdue of Georgia approached Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy shortly after Senate Republicans' latest effort to repeal Obamacare failed last week.
"You ready to work together, Chris?" Perdue asked.
"You bet," Murphy replied.
Democratic Sen. Bernie Sanders, of Vermont, who has long favored a single-payer healthcare system, told Tapper on Sunday that he was putting the finishing touches on legislation proposing just that.
Sanders said there should be a government-funded health-insurance option in every state.
"If people don't like the private insurance that they're getting, they should have a Medicare-type public option available in every state in this country," Sanders said.
When Tapper asked him whether he would be submitting his legislation proposing a single-payer system, Sanders replied, "Absolutely, of course we are."
