Washington — Senate Republicans are again pursuing a strategy of secretive, partisan repeal of the health care law despite failing to do so just weeks ago and despite the momentum behind a bipartisan approach to stabilizing insurance markets which has permeated the health care debate in the Senate over the last few weeks.
The current repeal effort being sponsored by U.S. Senators Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Bill Cassidy (R-LA), among others, also clearly violates the McCain Test laid out in his floor speech on July 25th where he declared his opposition to partisan repeal based on it failing to meet the traditions and protocols of the United States Senate and for which he received broad acclaim. McCain gave the speech upon returning to the Senate after being diagnosed with brain cancer. Among other things, McCain called for a return to regular order, compromise and bipartisanship and noted that the Republican effort to ram through partisan repeal written in secret and without hearings violated those standards.
“Graham-Cassidy is a return to the very partisan approach and tactics McCain deplored in his speech and fails the McCain Test in every way,” said Protect Our Care Campaign Director Brad Woodhouse. “This repeal bill was written in secret with Republican input only, there have been no hearings on it, there has been no CBO score and there’s not a hint of compromise in the approach which repeals but fails to replace the Affordable Care Act. Graham-Cassidy is a disaster substantively and as it relates to the McCain Test for how the Senate should operate it’s a miserable failure.”
The McCain Test from his July 25th Floor Speech:
· Cooperation
· Compromise
· Common Ground
· Trust
· Working Together
· Regular Order
· Committee Process
· Bipartisanship
· Deliberative
The McCain Test reiterated yesterday on Face the Nation:
MCCAIN: “Are we going to ram through our proposal with, with Democrats and the president? That’s not the way to do it. We got to go back. If I could just say again, the way to do this is have a bill, put it through the committee. We have Patty Murray and Lamar Alexander are doing fine — bring it to the floor. Have debate. Have amendments.”
Graham-Cassidy Fails the McCain Test:
· Partisan
· Secret
· No Hearings
· Rushed
