GOP threatens to hold budget hostage if they can't repeal Obamacare

The Republicans’ latest attempt at healthcare reform might be on the verge of collapse, but some are already saying they may hold the budget hostage to keep options on the table to repeal Obamacare next year.

The GOP faces a deadline of Sept. 30 (the end of the fiscal year) to pass Graham-Cassidy, their latest version of healthcare reform, and the support wasn’t there as of Tuesday. But even if they don’t meet that deadline, they’ll keep trying for an Obamacare repeal — one of President Trump’s core campaign promises.

“If we don’t get it done this week,” Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, a co-sponsor of the current bill, told NPR on Monday. “Senator [Lindsey] Graham and I have both told the leadership in the Senate that we won’t vote for a budget resolution that won’t give us the same possibility of passing a healthcare reform within that same process of budget reconciliation.”

READ: Looks like John McCain has killed the GOP healthcare bill again

Republicans have till Saturday to repeal Obamacare using a process called “budget reconciliation,” a complex process that would allow them to pass legislation with a simple majority rather than the filibuster-proof 60-vote majority that’s usually required in the Senate.

In January, Republicans passed a resolution that allowed them to invoke this rule in their effort to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare. If they want to use the rule again, they’ll need to pass another resolution, and some are now saying they won’t pass a budget that doesn’t include a resolution allowing them to use reconciliation for health reform in 2018.

“We should keep working until we get to yes,” Ted Cruz of Texas, who has wavered on his support for Graham-Cassidy, told CNN Tuesday.

And it’s possible they’ll tie this resolution not just to healthcare reform but also to the other big GOP legislative goal: tax reform.

“We’ve got to do both,” Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch, of Utah, told Politico, about addressing tax reform and healthcare reform together next year. “They’re complicated by necessity. So I don’t think that takes away the complications. But I think we’re supposed to be able to handle complications.”

The consensus within the GOP is that they need to use reconciliation to pass both of these major policy points: Without a 60-seat majority, Democrats can filibuster, and no Dems have broken with their party on any of the Republican Obamacare repeal efforts. There are a few Democratic senators who have shown some willingness to side with the GOP on tax reform — but even so, winning over eight is a tall order.

It’s possible that the GOP will succeed in passing a resolution allowing them to use the reconciliation process for both healthcare and tax reform — the resolution requires a simple majority in both the House and the Senate — but Republicans aren’t yet in agreement on their approach to the reconciliation process.

“I think we need to move on to tax reform,” said Louisiana Sen. John Kennedy, according to Politico. “I think this bill’s dead.”

But even Rand Paul of Kentucky, a loud GOP voice against Graham-Cassidy, wants to keep the door open for using reconciliation again next year.

Republicans have been promising to get rid of the Affordable Care Act since it was signed into law in 2010. And it looks like they’re not about to give up.