Was the a desire to cut taxes on the rich behind the latest move by Republicans to undo Obamacare? No, it was the desire to save face. Some will say that was more noble. It has been an extraordinary moment in Washington: Republicans were openly admitting that the latest bill, the brainchild of Republican Senators Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, was garbage, explaining that they were voting for it in order to live up to their word. Perversely, it made sense. If you campaigned on a promise to obliterate Central Park by fire and you win, then you’d better try to obliterate Central Park by fire. Yes, only 24 percent of Americans approve of Graham-Cassidy, but it’s almost beside the point. As Republicans could say to their supporters: Well, you said you wanted it.
Under the Graham-Cassidy bill, many essentials of Obamacare would have gone out the window to be replaced by block grants to states, which would have a lot of leeway to decide what to do with the money. You could read arguments for why it wasn’t as bad as people think, but these barely mattered. Even if the bill were an exquisite piece of legislation, a Michelangelo’s David of subsidies and opt-outs, it’d be no excuse for developing it in the dark, cutting debate to 90 seconds, and rushing it to a vote before the Congressional Budget Office could even give it a score. When you’re drastically reshaping our political economy and changing the rules of health for everyone under 65, maybe let’s chat first.
Bill Cassidy suffered a whirlwind of bad publicity after ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel accused him of lying about the sort of legislation he’d back, but Cassidy was the lesser name. The man we all know is Lindsey Graham, and his maneuvers were characteristic of his approach to the partisan game. Graham can be funny, and he’ll defy his own voters in ways that are, at times, gutsy, admitting that climate change is a genuine problem and pushing for immigration amnesties. Still, no matter how big a show he makes of his principles, Graham rarely lets his party down. As journalist Geoff Earle argued over a decade ago in the Washington Monthly, Graham cultivates a reputation for independent mindedness but uses it mostly to shield his own side.
What are the chances, then, of this thing passing? Until a couple of hours ago—when I first wrote these words, now hastily revised!—they were ominously decent. Among Republicans, Rand Paul was going to vote no. Susan Collins of Maine sounded unimpressed. That meant Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and John McCain of Arizona were the must-haves.
That was why Graham, in this particular round of health-care repeal—round three or four; no one can remember—was crucial. He had a shot at convincing John McCain, who voted no last time, to vote yes. McCain and Graham are close friends. Both fancy themselves mavericks, and they share a willingness to go to war with half of the planet. McCain, too, is a party man most of the time. In this case, though, principle came before party: McCain announced Friday afternoon that he could not “in good conscience” vote for Graham’s bill, adding that he said he took no pleasure in saying so. “The bill’s authors are my dear friends, and I think the world of them,” said McCain. ”I know they are acting consistently with their beliefs and sense of what is best for the country. So am I.”
I’ll confess to being happily surprised.
Prior to McCain’s announcement, the best hope of passing—or stopping—this bill took the form of Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski, who’d rather leave Obamacare as it is. The rumor was that she’d been offered precisely what she wanted: Obamacare as it is—but only for Alaska and Hawaii. She’d get to keep her state’s premium tax credits in exchange for yanking them from the lower 48. The only catch was that it was almost certainly unconstitutional, since you can’t impose different duties on different states. But, you know, pass it now. See you in court later.
To make this happen, Murkowski would have had to exempt her own state from the new law and tell the rest of America to drop dead. And Graham would have had to reverse himself on a vow to avoid anything like the “cornhusker kickback” that secured the Obamacare vote of Nebraska’s then Senator Ben Nelson back in 2009. In Graham’s words, if Republicans “start doing that crap, they’re going to lose me.”
In sum, passing this latest bill—which must happen before September 30 if it is to happen at all—would have involved insane levels of grubbiness and hypocrisy. Does that mean its odds were good? Only if you thought our esteemed elected officials were likely to be capable of grubbiness or hypocrisy. I did. But thank the Lord, and thank the G.O.P. holdouts—they are proving me wrong.
This article has been updated.
