House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said Wednesday the House has a “really good chance” to defeat a last-ditch Obamacare repeal bill if it makes it out of the Senate.
Mrs. Pelosi said blue-state Republicans should balk after they realize their states would receive less federal money than under the current program, while more than a dozen red states see more dollars by 2026.
“I don’t see how they could vote for it,” Mrs. Pelosi said.
She said right now, many Republicans don’t seem to have the “faintest idea” what’s in the bill.
“And if they do, how could they possibly do that to the people in their states?” she said. “This is really a stinkeroo, this bill.”
The last-gasp GOP proposal, sponsored by Sens. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, would pool Obamacare money that currently subsidizes coverage for many who buy insurance on the exchanges and money going to expand Medicaid rolls, and siphon it all to the states as block grants. The states would tailor the money to their own health care plans starting in 2020.
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It is the last bill standing after the Senate GOP failed to rally around alternatives, and President Trump and GOP leaders are pushing for a vote before a Sept. 30 deadline to avoid a Democratic filibuster under 2017 budget rules.
Mr. Graham said House Speaker Paul D. Ryan has vowed to fight for passage if it makes it out of the Senate, as Republicans scramble to fulfill their seven-year promise to repeal and replace the 2010 Affordable Care Act.
Mrs. Pelosi accused Republicans of trying to “sneak” the bill through amid the debate over hurricane relief and the deportation status of 800,000 illegal immigrants who were brought to the U.S. as children.
She deflected questions about Democrats’ own moves, saying a decision to clear the September agenda by striking a spending and debt-limit deal with Mr. Trump amounted to a “separate issue.”
“It isn’t that at all,” Mrs. Pelosi said.
• Tom Howell Jr. can be reached at thowell@washingtontimes.com.
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