Roberts: McCain should listen to himself, not Ducey, on Senate health care bill

In just D minus 12 days, Senate Republicans hope to repeal Obamacare and establish a plan that could leave millions without health insurance, and all of Arizona (and the nation) are wondering:

WWJMD. What will John McCain do?

Will he stand by his impassioned – and absolutely on the mark – words of late July when he called on his fellow senators to work together on health care, to compromise and hold public hearings?

Or will he cave and become the vote that potentially kicks millions of Americans to the health-care curb?

The plan: Ram it through before Sept. 30

The Graham-Cassidy bill is a last-ditch (latest ditch?) effort to get rid of Obamacare and usher in the latest Republican version of health insurance. Senate GOP leaders are aiming to ram the bill through by Sept. 30.

No time, apparently, for hearings on how many people would lose their insurance. Or reasoned debate or a full public understanding of how this bill would affect our lives, for better and/or worse.

Just move, move, move, because after Sept. 30, the Senate would need 60 votes rather than a simple majority. 

And so we stand here at D minus 12 days. D, as in disaster.

It's a heck of a way to make a far reaching decision will affect every American.

On Monday, Gov. Doug Ducey announced his support for the bill, calling it “the best path forward to repeal and replace Obamacare."

Arizona could lose big with this bill

That seems strange, given reports I’ve read that say Arizona would be a big loser under this bill because we expanded Medicaid under Obamacare. As in $1.6 billion in Medicaid funding through 2026.

Regardless, what Ducey says is important because McCain has said his swing vote depends on the impact to Arizona. (Then again, Ducey was reportedly also for skinny repeal and McCain voted against it anyway.)

Critics say the Graham-Cassidy bill would result in millions of people losing their insurance and could lead to the eventual elimination of protection of those who have pre-existing conditions.

We don't yet even have an analysis from the Congressional Budget Office.

But here’s a take from the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities: “It would cause many millions of people to lose coverage, radically restructure and deeply cut Medicaid, eliminate or weaken protections for people with pre-existing conditions, and increase out-of-pocket costs for individual market consumers.”

I begin to understand why Senate leaders don’t want hearings.

McCain should remember what he said

As for McCain. I’m hoping he’ll listen less to Ducey and more to his own words – the ones spoken in July, when he chastised both the Senate’s health care plan and the process that produced it.

“I hope we can again rely on humility, on our need to cooperate, on our dependence on each other to learn how to trust each other again and by so doing better serve the people who elected us. Stop listening to the bombastic loudmouths on the radio and television and the Internet. To hell with them. They don’t want anything done for the public good. Our incapacity is their livelihood.
 
“Let’s trust each other. Let’s return to regular order. We’ve been spinning our wheels on too many important issues because we keep trying to find a way to win without help from across the aisle. That’s an approach that’s been employed by both sides, mandating legislation from the top down, without any support from the other side, with all the parliamentary maneuvers that requires.
 
“We’re getting nothing done. All we’ve really done this year is confirm Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court. Our healthcare insurance system is a mess. We all know it, those who support Obamacare and those who oppose it. Something has to be done. We Republicans have looked for a way to end it and replace it with something else without paying a terrible political price. We haven’t found it yet, and I’m not sure we will. All we’ve managed to do is make more popular a policy that wasn’t very popular when we started trying to get rid of it.
 
“The Obama administration and congressional Democrats shouldn’t have forced through Congress without any opposition support a social and economic change as massive as Obamacare. And we shouldn’t do the same with ours.
 
“Why don’t we try the old way of legislating in the Senate, the way our rules and customs encourage us to act. If this process ends in failure, which seem likely, then let’s return to regular order. 
 
“Let the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee under Chairman Alexander and Ranking Member Murray hold hearings, try to report a bill out of committee with contributions from both sides. Then bring it to the floor for amendment and debate, and see if we can pass something that will be imperfect, full of compromises, and not very pleasing to implacable partisans on either side, but that might provide workable solutions to problems Americans are struggling with today."

READ MORE:

What Ducey told McCain ahead of his big vote to kill the skinny repeal

Diaz: McCain's skinny repeal vote just sealed his legacy

Letter: John McCain is a traitor to the Republican Party