Trumpcare deader-than-a-doornail - AGAIN!

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has not been able to garner enough votes to repeal the Afrodable Care Act.

WHAT'S THE DEFINITION OF INSANITY? Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

The Republicans' and Donald Trump's attempts to remove President Obama's legislation creating the Affordable Care Act failed for the 60th-something time.

The Senate will not vote on the latest attempt to replace and repeal Obamacare said Majority Leader Mitch McConnell Tuesday (Sept. 26). The deader than a doornail Graham-Cassidy bill failed to get enough senators to vote for it.

Three senators have voiced their opposition to the GOP health care bill. Senators John McCain and Susan Collins said they could not vote for the Graham-Cassidy bill, the GOP's latest attempt to remove any vestige of the Obama legacy. 

Sen. Rand Paul, one of the leaders of the radical right, had said earlier he could not vote for the bill because it didn't do enough to undo the ACA.

Two million Asian/Americans, Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders gained health coverage or are eligible for coverage by the ACA. 

"In our community, uninsurance decreased by 57% for Asian Americans and by 47% for NHPIs," said Chris Lu, who served as the Deputy Secretary of Labor during the Obama Administration, and Ko Chin is the President & CEO of the Asian & Pacific Islander American Health Forum in an opinion piece for Time magazine.

Insurance for those who have pre-existing condition could skyrocket, they wrote.The AAPI community, which suffers disproportionately from chronic hepatitis B, liver and stomach cancer, diabetes and tuberculosis. Half of Asian Americans and NHPIs are estimated to have diabetes or pre-diabetes – conditions that could lead to premium increases of $5,600 under Graham-Cassidy. The premium increase for a pre-existing condition of cancer would exceed the annual income of most Asian American families, they said.

One of the reasons the GOP was trying to ram this measure through without proper vetting was because of special budget rules that protected the legislation from a Democratic filibuster, allowing the Republicans to pass it with just 50 votes, plus a tiebreaker from Vice President Pence, instead of the 60 often required. Those special rules expire Sept. 30.

Just because the GOP will probably not introduce another repeal-and-replace bill this year, that doesn't mean some of the more conservative Republicans and the White House will try to undermine the program through the budget process by cutting funding for certain elements of the ACA, such as outreach efforts and insurance reimbursement payments. Already the Republicans' repeated attempts to repeal the ACA has made the market so uncertain that insurers have pulled out of some markets.

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Senators wrestle with health insurance bills.

Senators Dean Heller and Susan Collins confer on the health insurancee vote.

SENATE LEADER Mitch McConnell is throwing stuff at the wall to see what sticks. The latest attempt to undo the Affordable Care Act went down in flames Wednesday (July 26).

The three AAPI women senators voted against the Republican proposals.

For the second time in less than 24 hours, the U.S. Senate took another vote on providing healthcare for Americans. This time, it was an outright repeal of the ACA by taking away the funding. And what would replace it? Nothing. That would leave ACA participants - over 22 million - without health insurance.

The measure, known as as the Obamacare Repeal Reconciliation Act, failed 45-55, with seven Republican senators voting against it, along with all Democrats and independents in the upper chamber. 

It should be noted that Sen. John McCain, who has received criticism for voting along party lines, opposed the proposal. He was joined by GOP Sens. Lamar Alexander (Tenn.), Susan Collins (Maine), Dean Heller (Nev.), Shelley Moore Capito (W. Va.), Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) and Rob Portman (Ohio) opposed the legislation.

Heller, who drew intense criticism from his constituents when he voted to open debate on the issue, proposed an amendment to request protection of the Affordable Care Act's Medicaid expansion was defeated Wednesday evening by a 90-10 vote. Over 138,000 Nevadans would lose their health insurance if ACA is somehow watered down or eliminated.

The language in Heller's amendment asked the conference committee not to consider cutting Medicaid or shifting costs to states, but would not have imposed any binding requirements on the committee.

On Tuesday evening, the Senate voted against the Better Care Reconciliation Act, 43-57, McConnel's replacement for the ACA with nine Republicans joining the Democrats.

On Thursday, McConnel will try again to give tax breaks to millionaires and billionaires by offering up the so-called "skinny repeal," which would do away with some aspects of the ACA such as the individual mandate and the rule that requires companies with more than 50 employees to provide health insurance. 

There are some in the Senate who believe this more modest reduction would have a better chance for passage. However, if Heller remains steadfast in his opposition against any Medicaid reduction, and he votes with moderates Murkowski and Collins, the three no votes would be enough to stop any efforts to weaken or do away with the ACA.  

“We are better than this as a country, and the American people deserve more from us as their representatives," said California's Sen. Kamala Harris. "This vote to consider a bill that kicks more than 20 million people off of their health care is utterly shameful, but we cannot throw up our hands when it is time to roll up our sleeves." 

Sen. Tammy Duckworth of Chicago urged people to continue calling their senators. "Now more than ever, the American people must keep speaking out and making their voices heard," she said. "And Senate Republicans must listen – to their constituents and to the most vulnerable among us like the members of the disability community who have been here day after day literally fighting for their lives. Then, I hope we can leave this partisan process behind and pursue the honest-to-goodness fixes to the Affordable Care Act that both parties can support to improve our nation’s healthcare system.”

"Any proposal Senate Republicans come up with will kick millions off of their health care and hurt the sickest, oldest and poorest in our communities," said Sen. Mazie Hirono, D- Hawaii.  She returned to the Senate floor to vote against the Republican proposals after she underwent surgery to remove a cancerous tumor last week.

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ATTN NEVADA RESIDENTS: Keep calling or emailing Sen. Heller to register your opposition against the Republican plans to eliminate or weaken the Affordable Care Act.
Email him at: https://www.heller.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/contact-form
Call him at his district offices: 702-388-6605 in Las Vegas; or 775-686-5770 in Reno; or Washington DC, 202-224-6244.