General Discussion

At Thursday’s meeting, they told their caucus colleagues that they now had ten votes to re-open the government in exchange for no real Republican concessions. At that, much of the rest of the caucus went ballistic, and some of the supposed ten said that, in fact, they were not willing to vote for any such deal. The leaders of the proposed Democratic cave-in, Sens. Maggie Hassan and Jeanne Shaheen, both of New Hampshire, and Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada, then backed down.

President Trump, meanwhile, who had urged the Senate to stay in weekend session to reach a deal, reverted to his usual rants on Truth Social Saturday morning, declaring: “I am recommending to Senate Republicans that the Hundreds of Billions of Dollars currently being sent to money sucking Insurance Companies in order to save the bad Healthcare provided by ObamaCare, BE SENT DIRECTLY TO THE PEOPLE SO THAT THEY CAN PURCHASE THEIR OWN, MUCH BETTER, HEALTHCARE, and have money left over.” He also called once again for an end of the filibuster.

Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA), chair of the committee with jurisdiction over health care, pitched a related scheme that would turn the enhanced ACA subsidies into a flexible spending account, which would likely push people into high-deductible plans and complicate the maddening health care system even further. Informed observers tell me that the obvious compromise deal, which would allow each side to claim a partial victory, is either a shorter extension of the ACA subsidies for less than a year, or an extention with a partial cut at higher incomes. It remains to be seen whether both sides can get to yes.