House May Have To Vote Again On AHCA Even Before Senate Acts

So perhaps the Republicans didn’t really pass the AHCA after all. In yet another stunning development and indicative of the disarray and the raw abuse of power in the Republican party, apparently Paul Ryan has not yet sent the AHCA over to the Senate for consideration. Ryan has held onto the bill because it is possible that the CBO score, which is expected to come out next Wednesday, will require the House to actually vote again on the bill.

If Ryan had sent the bill over to the Senate for consideration and the CBO score of the revised AHCA plan came in with savings less than $2 billion, it would mean that Republicans would literally have to start all over, passing a new budget resolution and then passing the AHCA again. By not sending the bill over, Ryan can call a new vote to simply modify the AHCA to get within the CBO limit.

The AHCA originally showed about $150 billion in savings so there should have been plenty of leeway for the GOP. But last minute amendments clearly reduced that buffer. And if, as Republicans claim, the cheaper insurance that provides scant real coverage that the AHCA allows result in a surge of new enrollees who will receive tax credits, then that could add untold billions to the cost of the AHCA and eliminate virtually all the savings from the AHCA. If so, House Republicans would have to start all over with another version of the AHCA, Trumpcare 4.0.

Of course, this kind of highlights the reason to wait for a CBO score when you are passing legislation that effects nearly 20% of the US economy. As Louise Slaughter notes, “Every school child knows that when you pass a bill in the House, you send it to the Senate. You don’t hide it in a drawer somewhere for two weeks, while you wait for information that you should have had before you passed it.” But not with the current Republican party which has totally abandoned democratic and governing norms.

It would be interesting to see what would happen if the CBO score does not show the required savings and Ryan forces House Republicans to vote yet again for the incredibly unpopular and cruel AHCA. House members have been getting an earful from their constituents about the plan and the CBO score of the plan is likely to be even uglier than the first version, if you can imagine that. That will again reignite the furor against the AHCA just as the GOP is forced to vote on it again.

In addition, the AHCA passed with just a two vote margin. Jason Chaffetz plans to resign from Congress at the end of June and the special elections in Georgia and Montana will be held on June 20th and May 25th respectively. A Democratic win in just one of those two special elections plus Chaffetz’ resignation would erase that two vote margin. That would imply that Ryan would have to move rather quickly to amend the AHCA and get it passed again before he loses his margin to move the bill.

With the Russia investigation moving over to a special counsel in the form of Robert Mueller, it will now probably drop off the radar to some extent. But that will allow the focus to just shift to the CBO score coming out next week and the appalling nature of the AHCA. Democrats will be happy with that shift as the AHCA is far more unpopular than even Donald Trump and it will probably be the focus of the 2018 elections.