Right now, congressional Republicans are in about the best possible position on health care: They showed that they can pass something (anything!) in the House, and now no one is paying any attention to it any more.
It’s unlikely, though, that the Senate will end up doing nothing with the American Health Care Act, the Republican bill that passed the House earlier this month. Meaning that the party will again have to grapple with a complicated, deeply unpopular bill that the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office figures will mean 23 million fewer people with health insurance in 10 years’ time.
New survey data from the Kaiser Family Foundation, though, serves as a reminder that pushing forward with the legislation could be politically problematic well past this year. CONT.
Philip Bump, Washington Post