U.S. Senator: House health care bill not on table; senate to start from scratch

In this May 4, 2017, photo, President Donald Trump talks to House Speaker Paul Ryan of Wis. in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington, after the House pushed through a health care bill. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
In this May 4, 2017, photo, President Donald Trump talks to House Speaker Paul Ryan of Wis. in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington, after the House pushed through a health care bill. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

BRANCHBURG, N.J. -- President Donald Trump urged Senate Republicans on Sunday to "not let the American people down" as the debate over overhauling the U.S. health care system shifts to Congress' upper chamber.

Senators, however, said they would not take up the American Health Care Act passed by the House last week, but would instead create their own bill with the goal of repealing and replacing the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

"The House bill is not going to come before us," Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, said on ABC's This Week, adding that the Senate would be "starting from scratch."

"We're going to draft our bill, and I'm convinced we will take the time to do it right," she said. There is no timetable for the Senate to vote on health care legislation.

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House Speaker Paul Ryan acknowledged Sunday that the bill he unveiled after years of Republican pledges to replace the 2010 measure signed by President Barack Obama -- a law that has become known as "Obamacare" -- will be altered as part of a "multistage process."

When asked about criticism that the House approved the bill too quickly, with no hearings and no evaluation from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, Ryan, R-Wis., dismissed that as "kind of a bogus attack from the left."

"This is a rescue mission. ... This is a crisis," he said Sunday on ABC's This Week. "We are trying to prevent this crisis."

Ryan added that "the Senate will complete the job."

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Mick Mulvaney, Trump's budget director, agreed on CBS' Face the Nation that the version of the bill that gets to the president will likely differ from the bill passed by the House. Such a scenario would then force the House and Senate to work together to forge a compromise bill that both houses can support.

"We're going to go through that process," Mulvaney said. "Is it ugly? Maybe. Is it slow? Yes, but it's the right way to do it, and it's how we're going to handle this bill."

Trump has said the current system is failing as insurers pull out of markets, forcing costs and deductibles to rise.

"Republican senators will not let the American people down!" Trump tweeted from his private golf course in central New Jersey. "ObamaCare premiums and deductibles are way up -- it was a lie and it is dead!"

Priebus confident

Reince Priebus, Trump's chief of staff, was also critical of the Affordable Care Act, which he called "a failing, collapsing system that ... most people don't think is going to work." He said he looked forward to senators' efforts to repeal and replace the law.

"We started that process, we guided through the House and now, it's off to the Senate," Priebus said on Fox News Sunday. "We will get this done. We will repeal and replace Obamacare and give Americans a better product. That's what the president promised."

Democrats have predicted that voters will punish Republicans who voted to undo the Obama health care law, but Priebus said Sunday that voters would embrace a new law.

"By the time the people see that premiums are lower, it's a better service, there are more options and more choices, they're going to reward the Republicans that stood up and said, 'We are not going to see the Obamacare system, which is failing and collapsing, continue any longer,'" Priebus said. "We're going to do something better, and we're going to do our job as legislators to get this thing done. I think that the Republican Party will be rewarded."

Senate talks at the moment mostly involve only Republicans. Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., who has been friendly with Trump, said Sunday that he was distressed that no Democrats have been asked to work on the bill in the Senate. A working group of 13 GOP senators from different parts of the ideological spectrum is meeting twice a week to talk about how to move ahead.

"I'm the most centrist Democrat willing to work and fix things," Manchin said on Face the Nation, adding that people in his rural, working-class state would be "completely slammed" by the House bill.

Asked why no women had been picked for the Senate working group on health care, Collins replied, "The leaders obviously chose the people they want."

As House Republicans fanned out across the country for a one-week recess, Mulvaney, a former House member from South Carolina, said lawmakers should be "ecstatic" about the chance to talk to their constituents about the legislation.

"Absolutely, without reservation," Mulvaney said. "That's what I would do."

But the public response has been decidedly mixed. When Rep. Raul Labrador, R-Idaho, a member of the House Freedom Caucus, held a town-hall-style meeting on Friday, a woman told him, "You are mandating people on Medicaid to accept dying."

"That line is so indefensible," Labrador replied. "Nobody dies because they don't have access to health care." The crowd responded with boos and jeers.

Obama urges courage

Obama weighed in on Sunday night, calling on members of Congress to show "political courage" on the health care law.

The former president spoke in Boston after receiving the Profile in Courage Award, presented on the 100th anniversary of President John F. Kennedy's birth.

In the course of a 45-minute speech, his second since he left office, Obama focused largely on the health care debate. He praised the lawmakers who voted for the Affordable Care Act despite knowing it would put their political careers at risk.

"These men and women did the right thing," Obama said. "They did the hard thing ... and most of them did lose their seats."

As the legislation to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act moves to the Senate, Obama called on Republican and Democratic lawmakers to demonstrate similar courage to ensure that vulnerable Americans do not lose access to care.

"This great debate is not settled but continues, and it is my fervent hope -- and the hope of millions -- that regardless of party, such courage is still possible," Obama said.

He did not mention Trump in his speech, nor did he explicitly call on senators to defend the bill. Instead he urged lawmakers to stand up for those who are most vulnerable.

The Affordable Care Act passed the Senate in 2010 with 60 votes -- the minimum required to avoid a filibuster. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., plans to move forward on the American Health Care Act under reconciliation, a Senate procedure for budgetary measures that allows legislation to pass with a simple majority vote. That means McConnell can afford to lose two of the 52 GOP senators; Vice President Mike Pence would vote to break a 50-50 tie in his constitutional role as president of the Senate.

Ryan: Here to help

Ryan said concerns about the content of the new bill, which cleared the House with 217 Republican votes, are misguided.

"We will want to make sure people who have bad health care status, who have a pre-existing condition, get affordable coverage," Ryan said. "That's not happening in Obamacare. You got to remember, if you can't even get a health insurance plan, what good is it? You don't have health insurance."

Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price argued on NBC's Meet the Press that the bill will give states more freedom to experiment with the program and make sure that people who rely on Medicaid get the care and coverage they need.

Asked on CNN's State of the Union about hundreds of billions of dollars in cuts to Medicaid in the House measure, Price said Americans were tired of their tax dollars going to failing programs.

"The winners under Obamacare were the federal government and insurance companies," he said. "The winners under the program that we provide, and that we believe is the most appropriate, will be patients and families and doctors."

Ohio Gov. John Kasich, a Republican, questioned what would happen to the mentally ill, drug addicts and people with chronic illnesses under the changes proposed for Medicaid.

"They are going to be living in the emergency rooms again," potentially driving up health care costs, Kasich said.

A budget office analysis of a previous version of the House bill said millions of Americans would lose insurance coverage.

"It is going to go to the Senate," Kasich said. "And I hope and pray they are going to write a much bigger bill."

Information for this article was contributed by Darlene Superville and Hope Yen of The Associated Press; by Noah Weiland of The New York Times; by Chris Strohm, Ben Brody and Mark Niquette of Bloomberg News; and by Greg Jaffe, Robert Costa, John Wagner and Amy Goldstein of The Washington Post.

A Section on 05/08/2017

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