Health Care

Week ahead: ObamaCare repeal effort in trouble?

by Sarah Ferris and Peter Sullivan 11/16/15 06:00 AM ET

Republicans are confronting a new challenge in their attempt to pass a repeal of ObamaCare this year — the Senate’s rules on reconciliation.

Senate leaders are sparring over the GOP’s bill to dismantle major pieces of ObamaCare, which the party has aimed to send to the president’s desk by the end of the year.

The bill, which would roll back mandates, erase taxes and strip federal funding from Planned Parenthood, can be passed by a simple majority instead of the 60-vote threshold under a budget process known as reconciliation.

{mosads}But the chamber’s Democrats say the fate of the legislation is now in question. They argue that recent guidance from the Senate’s parliamentarian, who decides whether legislation meets reconciliation rules, means that the GOP bill does not pass muster.

Senate Republicans, however, have countered that the parliamentarian’s ruling would allow the bill to pass as long as it includes some tweaks. That amendment will be mapped out by GOP leaders in the coming days, though Democrats argue that the amendment would have to receive 60 votes because it’s outside of the special budget process.

“The bottom line, and the advice from the parliamentarian, is that [these mandates would] require 60 votes because they’re not merely incidental,” the aide said.

Senate GOP leaders had previously said the reconciliation bill could come up for consideration next week, though that schedule appears to have changed.

“A vote on ObamaCare repeal has not been set yet,” a GOP aide said Friday. When asked if the bill could come up as early as next week, the aide repeated that the bill’s timing is not set.

On Tuesday, the Senate Health Committee will consider President Obama’s nominee for Food and Drug Administration commissioner, Dr. Robert Califf, who is currently a deputy commissioner at the agency and a longtime researcher at Duke University.

Califf has been relatively uncontroversial. Upon his nomination in September, committee Chairman Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) praised his “strong credentials” and said the panel would move promptly to consider him.

There have been a few concerns from the left that he is too close to the pharmaceutical industry, whose drugs the FDA is tasked with approving.

The hearing on Tuesday will give senators a chance to hear Califf’s thoughts on speeding the FDA’s approval of new drugs.

The House passed a bill with that aim in July, known as 21st Century Cures, and the Senate Health Committee is currently working on its own version.

On Thursday, a House Energy and Commerce subcommittee will consider flu preparedness and whether there has been an improvement over last year, when the vaccine was less effective due to being mismatched with the virus.