The disorganized dance among Republican lawmakers is only getting more intense and insane as doomsday for Obamacare subsidies looms. On one of the next few Mondays, or perhaps even this Thursday, the Supreme Court is going to hand down its decision in King v. Burwell, determining whether more than 6 million people getting health insurance subsidies through the federal health insurance exchange can keep them. The people who will be affected live primarily in Republican states where political leaders wanted nothing to do with helping their uninsured people get cheaper health insurance, and washed their hands of the whole thing. The problem is, the only thing Republicans have been able to agree about Obamacare is to wash their hands of it, and now they're stuck, with potential disaster looming, no viable options, and no agreement on trying to create viable options. That means lots of conflict within the Republican Congress.
Senior Republicans who are worried they’ll be blamed for killing health insurance for millions of Americans have been busy assembling a range of options if the Supreme Court strikes down the law’s subsidies in 34 states.
But the GOP senators running for president—starting but not ending with firebrand Ted Cruz—threaten to stymie their leaders’ carefully hatched plans. Any whiff that the GOP’s Plan B is a continuation of Obamacare is bound to spark furious protests from the conservative base, putting pressure on the presidential hopefuls to respond. Cruz, for one, would press for a wholesale repeal of the law—or to allow states to opt out of Obamacare—if the high court provides the opening.
Top Republicans warn those conservatives are playing with fire.
"Things can't be turned on a dime," said Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn of Texas. "People can run for president, but we've actually got to solve a problem."
That's just the Senate, where one senator can mess up the whole agenda. At this point, the preferred option seems to be Sen. Ron Johnson's (R-WI) extension of subsidies for 18 months, after which they go away for
everyone, including people in state-based exchanges. But given that Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) also wants full repeal, and no extension at all of anything Obamacare, it's going to be hard for Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to figure out a way to overcome their opposition for anything less. He can try using a filibuster-proof
reconciliation procedure to make changes, but that's fraught with difficulties, including the fact that he'd still have to try to hold all but three of his Republican conference together, and he probably doesn't have those numbers.
Then there's the House, where the Cruz/Paul contingent of repeal and repeal only is just as strong, if not more so. Whatever McConnell comes up with also has to be jammed through by Speaker John Boehner, and vice versa. They're certainly not going to be bailed out with Democratic votes in either chamber. And, of course, if they do manage to come to some kind of agreement it will be unacceptable to President Obama and will be vetoed. That's the best outcome possible for them, since then they could conceivably blame the whole thing on him, but you can't ever accuse the tea party types of being particularly sharp on the strategic thinking thing.
So here we are, days closer to a potentially devastating Supreme Court decision, and nowhere near a legislative solution. That is Republican leadership for you.