Status Report: Graham-Cassidy is dead (for now)

Confession: I’ve been putting off writing about Graham-Cassidy for over a week. Every time I thought I was ready to sit down and write about it, I’d check twitter and see a new update about the bill.

Today was going to be the day I finally did it. I wrote during my lunch break and was saving it for proofing and posting until later in the afternoon because I could feel that something was going to happen and I’d have to make an update. And damn, did something happen.

So here’s where we are: Graham-Cassidy is dead (for now). McConnell pulled the vote (for now). Yesterday, Senator Susan Collins announced that she was opposed to the bill, joining Senators John McCain and Rand Paul as Republican hard no votes, effectively killing it (for now).

When I heard that there wouldn’t be a vote, I breathed a sigh of relief. I took a beat. And then started getting anxious again because if there’s one thing we’ve learned in the past eight months, it’s that nothing this administration wants to do is ever actually dead. These bills will keep popping back up like the least fun game of whack-a-mole ever.

Pulling the vote means that Republicans won’t be able to pass healthcare with a simple majority under budget reconciliation during this fiscal year, which draws to a close on September 30. But this is the Zombie Bill That Could, so it’ll be back. Politico outlined two different ways another chance at repeal could play out.

Republicans could insist that the 2018 budget resolution includes reconciliation instructions for both healthcare and tax reform. To unlock certain procedural powers, Congress would have to pass both. They want those procedural powers, and two of the Republicans on the Senate Budget Committee (where Republicans have a slight one-seat majority) have already said they’ll only support a budget that includes both healthcare and tax reforms.

The second possibility is that Congress uses fiscal year 2018 to focus on tax reform as planned, but starts 2019 budget talks early next year to include healthcare instructions in that reconciliation. This would delay any changes from going into effect, but it also puts the healthcare debate back in the forefront in the leadup to the 2018 midterm elections. Certainly not ideal for Republicans when a majority of people like the Affordable Care Act.

Another confession: I was not nearly as well-informed about Graham-Cassidy as I was about repeal and replace/replace/skinny repeal/Diet Repeal Lite(TM) . There were a lot of things vying for my attention, from hurricanes to local protests to, inexplicably, pro football. Repealing the ACA was a major campaign promise for Trump in 2016 and for Republicans since it passed. Another effort will come back. It’ll be equally bad in some ways or even worse in others, but whatever comes, we have to be prepared for it.

I’ll be over here, counting down the seconds until October 1.