Sen. Susan Collins announced this evening that she will vote "no" on the Graham-Cassidy health care bill, becoming the third Republican to do so and likely dooming the GOP's latest effort to repeal and replace Obamacare.
"Today, we find out that there is now a fourth version of the Graham-Cassidy proposal, which is as deeply flawed as the previous iterations," Collins said in a statement. "The fact that a new version of this bill was released the very week we are supposed to vote compounds the problem."
Collins joined Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Rand Paul, R-Ky.
Collins said she had three “major concerns” with the proposed legislation from Sens. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., Bill Cassidy, R-La., Dean Heller, R-Nev., and Ron Johnson, R-Wis. Among them were what she called the "sweeping changes and cuts" in the Medicaid program.
“The CBO’s analysis on the earlier version of the bill, incomplete though it is due to time constraints, confirms that this bill will have a substantially negative impact on the number of people covered by insurance,” Collins quipped.
Just minutes before Collins announced her vote, the Congressional Budget Office released a preliminary analysis of the latest version of the Graham-Cassidy estimating that “millions” would lose health care.
“The number of people with comprehensive health insurance that covers high-cost medical events would be reduced by millions compared with the baseline projections for each year during the decade, CBO and JCT estimate,” the analysis released Monday states. “That number could vary widely depending on how states implemented the legislation, although the direction of the effect is clear.”
Collins’ "no" vote may well be the final nail in the coffin for the Graham-Cassidy bill. The bill needs 52 votes to pass before the Sept. 30 deadline, and with three Republican senators standing in opposition, the bill is essentially dead on arrival.
from ABC News: Politics http://ift.tt/2yD0KBx
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