Issue link: http://palletcentral.uberflip.com/i/819351
22 PalletCentral • March-April 2017 palletcentral.com ?? s setbacks mount, health care experts wonder whether Republicans will find a way to unite or simply trade the blame for failure. Republicans' health care plan is taking fire from all sides, but there doesn't appear to be a very clear backup plan should it fail. The substance of GOP leaders' plan to repeal and replace Obamacare has divided their party, and those divisions only seem to be growing as Congress's April recess gets closer. Health policy experts say there isn't a clear fallback strategy if repeal ultimately fails. "Trump promised repeal-and-replace," said Sally Pipes, president and CEO of the Pacific Research Institute. "The Republicans ran on repeal-and- replace. What would happen in the elections in 2018 if they don't do it? I mean, that shows that you lied about the promise you made to the American people." Making good on that promise, though, seems to be getting harder by the day, and leadership suffered a major setback from the Congressional Budget Office, which said it expects the GOP bill would increase the number of uninsured Americans by 24 million people over the next 10 years. Following the release of the CBO numbers, Sen. Susan Collins showed trepidation over the path the House was taking. "It should prompt the House to slow down and reconsider certain provisions of the bill," she said in a statement Monday. "This is an extremely important debate with significant implications for millions of Americans." Collins isn't the only Republican hoping to pump the brakes on repeal, even though GOP leaders are hoping to wrap the process up by mid-April (at press time). The longer it takes, many Republicans believe, the more likely it is to fail. Pipes thinks the bill will make it out of the House, but said it will be difficult to know whether Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell can get the votes together to pass it through the Senate. "A number of senators, as you know, aren't excited about this," she said. "But will Senator McConnell be able to herd the cats and tell them to get on board? … It's difficult to know, but I think there will be a lot of horse-trading, bartering on the Senate side for sure." Her concern, she said, is whether Republicans have a backup plan if this effort collapses. The bill's loudest critics in the House are mostly members of the Freedom Caucus, who have dubbed the GOP proposal "Obamacare Lite." But the changes that leadership would likely need to appease the Freedom Caucus would only deepen the bill's biggest problems in the Senate. There, it's facing resistance from Republicans who fear that it's too draconian and are particularly concerned with protecting Medicaid – where the GOP bill makes its deepest cuts. Some are hoping to preserve Obamacare's Medicaid expansion, while members of the Freedom Caucus want to kill the expansion more quickly. A What's on Obamacare Repeal? By Erin Durkin BUSINESS … if the House fails to push anything forward, Republicans will be more nervous about the 2018 election. P lan"B"