Trump to GOP: Doing nothing on healthcare isn’t an option

WASHINGTON—In a matter of days, Republican senators have flipped from plans to repeal and replace Obamacare, to repeal only, to wait and see what happens. President Donald Trump has just one message for them: Inaction isn’t an option.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., found out early this week, even after significant tweaks, he didn’t have enough Republican votes to pass his Better Care Reconciliation Act (BCRA). He then tried to resurrect a 2015 bill to simply defund as much of the Affordable Care Act as possible. All but one Republican senator voted for it in the past but within hours, McConnell found it wouldn’t fly this time.

On Wednesday, 49 GOP senators visited the White House, where Trump urged them to follow through with their seven-year promise to repeal Obamacare. The caucus left galvanized to take action, but it’s unclear what that will look like.

At the beginning of the year, Trump entrusted lawmakers with a near impossible task: Create a healthcare system that provides more and better care, but make it cheaper for everyone. Oh, and do it without needing Democratic votes.

The president opened the meeting by reading a statement about all the good things he liked about BCRA and highlighting Obamacare’s failures.

“I’m ready to act,” Trump said, “For seven years you promised the American people that you would repeal Obamacare. People are hurting. Inaction is not an option, and frankly, I don't think we should leave town unless we have a health insurance plan, unless we can give our people great healthcare.”

After the meeting, McConnell announced he will stick with his plan to hold a vote on a motion to proceed with the 2015 repeal bill. Once lawmakers are “on the bill,” Republicans can offer amendments to assuage their concerns. But on Tuesday, three Republican senators—Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia, Susan Collins of Maine, and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska—said they would vote against a motion to proceed, enough to sink the effort.

Making matters worse, Sen. John McCain’s cancer diagnosis leaves his return to the Senate in doubt, which means one less vote for McConnell.

Republicans left the White House confused about whether McConnell actually favored bringing up a bill he knows will fail or whether he has something else up his sleeve.

But Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, told me confusion wasn’t the problem, it’s just that no one made a decision.

“It was not a place to make a decision,” he said. “Everybody expressed their views and various people threw out various versions of what ought to be done. No conclusion drawn.”

Republicans want different things. Most want to follow through with their campaign promise to repeal the Affordable Care Act, but some like parts of the law too much to nix the whole thing. And without seeking Democratic votes, Republicans can’t repeal the entire law anyway.

The 2015 bill McConnell wants to reconsider defunds most of Obamacare but retains many of its regulations. It repeals enough of the law to get far-right conservatives like Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., and Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, on board but fails to allay many moderate Republican concerns about not having a replacement ready to go.

“To just say ‘repeal and trust us, we’re going to fix it in a couple of years,’ that’s not going to provide comfort to the anxiety a lot of Alaskan families are feeling right now,” Murkowski told reporters this week.

Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., told reporters on Wednesday he doubts the 2015 bill could even get to 40 votes at this point. He also announced this week, regardless of the vote outcome, his Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions would begin conducting public hearings on healthcare—something Democrats have requested for months.

When asked about the possibility of healthcare reform failing entirely, McConnell said he’d still have a positive message to offer voters.

“Well, we have a new Supreme Court justice,” he said. “We have 14 repeals of regulations, and we’re only six months in. Last time I looked, the Congress goes on for two years.”

Budget headaches

Republicans cleared a key procedural budget bill hurdle late Wednesday, but its 2018 spending package still has an uncertain future.

The House Budget Committee marked up legislation for more than 12 hours Wednesday to finalize next year’s spending levels. After dozens of amendments, the committee passed the bill on a party-line 22-14 vote.

The proposed plan asks for deep cuts to safety net programs such as Medicaid and food stamps in an attempt to finally create a balanced budget over the next decade. It also calls for $621 billion in defense spending next year—about $50 billion more than the White House requested earlier this year.

But Republicans remain divided on what they want. Although the budget cleared the committee vote, its passage through the full House is not guaranteed.

“Both parties in Washington have failed to abide by a simple principle that all American families and small businesses do—that we must live within our means,” said Rep. Diane Black, R-Tenn., chairwoman of the House budget committee. “Balancing the budget requires us to make tough choices, but the consequences of inaction far outweigh any political risks we may face.”

Black is working with party leaders in a complicated balancing act. Lawmakers want to pass a spending package sometime next week, before the start of August recess. But most importantly, they need to pass it as soon as possible so they can use the budget as a reconciliation vehicle for tax reform. If all goes according to plan, Republicans could pass a rare balanced budget with the first real tax reforms in more than 30 years, all without Democratic votes. There’s just one problem: In the same way Republicans are struggling to pass healthcare reform, they can’t agree on a budget either.

More than 20 members of the moderate House Tuesday Group are threatening to block the budget as it stands. They don’t like Black’s plan to cut $203 billion in mandatory spending from safety net programs. But some conservatives don’t think the cuts are substantial enough, since the United States adds more than $500 billion to the deficit each year. The House Freedom Caucus asked for at least $400 billion in spending cuts—Black only met them halfway.

In good news for Republican leaders, the three-dozen House Freedom Caucus members haven’t taken an official stance against the bill, despite their concerns. But they want assurances on what tax reform will look like if they throw in their support.

“The problem is we don’t have knowledge yet, and I mean that literally, we don’t have any knowledge of what’s going to be in the tax bill,” Rep. Dave Brat, R-Va., a Freedom Caucus member, told me. “You can be hopeful, you can have nice feelings about it and all these kinds of things, but you don’t know for sure.”

House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., has been working with the White House and Senate GOP leaders for months on tax legislation. His goal is to have the president sign a bill before the end of the year. But he needs the budget to pass to make that happen.

Ryan worked to pass a short-term reconciliation in January so Republicans could use it for healthcare reform. Freedom Caucus members initially hated the end result, which ultimately hit a bigger roadblock in the Senate. House conservatives are demanding more details from Ryan’s tax plan, which may delay the already time-sensitive budget.

“Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me,” said Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, a founding member of the Freedom Caucus. “I just want to know more about what tax reform looks like before we open the gate.” —E.W.

Forfeiture back in session

Attorney General Jeff Sessions doesn’t want anyone to think the Trump administration is going soft on crime.

On Wednesday, Sessions announced plans to ramp up civil asset forfeiture, especially for suspected drug crimes. This new directive would make it easier for local law enforcement officials to permanently confiscate cash and property from anyone suspected of wrongdoing.

“Civil asset forfeiture is a key tool that helps law enforcement defund organized crime, take back ill-gotten gains, and prevent new crimes from being committed, and it weakens the criminals and the cartels,” Sessions said. “We will continue to encourage civil asset forfeiture whenever appropriate in order to hit organized crime in the wallet.”

Under the Obama administration, the Department of Justice reduced the use of civil asset forfeiture because of its propensity for abuse. Both Republicans and Democrats agree criminals should not be able to keep drug money, cars, weapons, or other assets attained while breaking the law. But in many cases, civil asset forfeiture does not require a criminal conviction. Police merely need the suspicion of wrongdoing to seize cash or property permanently.

President Donald Trump supports the practice, but not all Republicans do.

“Criminals shouldn’t be able to keep the proceeds of their crime, but innocent Americans shouldn’t lose their right to due process, or their private property rights, in order to make that happen,” Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., wrote in a statement.

Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, who clashed with Sessions when the two sat on the Senate Judiciary Committee last year, called the new policy a step in the wrong direction: “Instead of revising forfeiture practices in a manner to better protect Americans’ due process rights, the DOJ seems determined to lose in court before it changes its policies for the better.”

Liberals criticized the move as well. The American Civil Liberties Union called the policy Sessions’ attempt to bring back the War on Drugs. Sessions acknowledged criticisms but said he trusts officials to avoid corruption.

“Our law enforcement officers do an incredible job,” he said. “In fact, over the last decade, four out of five administrative civil asset forfeitures filed by federal law enforcement agencies were never challenged in court.” —E.W.

A matter of when?

Pro-Israel groups renewed calls this week to move the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Vice President Mike Pence delivered the keynote address Monday evening at the Christians United for Israel summit in Washington. “I promise you that the day will come when President Donald Trump moves the American Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem,” Pence said. “It is not a question of if; it is only when.” Pence’s promise drew loud cheers from the audience, but so far the administration’s action has not matched its rhetoric. On June 1, Trump signed a waiver to temporarily keep the U.S. embassy in Tel Aviv. The White House said the decision was an attempt to foster peace between the Israelis and Palestinians but “no one should consider this step to be in any way a retreat from the president’s strong support for Israel.” Every U.S. president has signed the waiver twice a year since 1995. Rep. Trent Franks, R-Ariz., introduced legislation in January to override the waiver and permanently move the embassy to Jerusalem. But the bill has yet to gain traction. —E.W.