Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) offered a grim outlook on the prospects of the House’s proposed legislation to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act.
“It is mortally wounded, I don’t know if it’s died yet,” he told NBC’s “Today” Wednesday when asked whether the bill that House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) presented this month is “dead on arrival.”
That’s because the Senate won’t vote for the bill, known as the American Health Care Act, Graham explained. Both he and Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) refuse to vote for the bill, he said. Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) also publicly opposed it.
“The bill allows open enrollment for the entire country all the way through 2019 for Medicaid, which is fundamentally broken,” Graham added. “I don’t like that.”
Instead, he said wished President Donald Trump would “try to get a good deal.” And if that’s impossible, then it would be better to just “let Obamacare collapse and challenge the Democrats to help him fix a problem they created.”
Graham then addressed the controversy surrounding the bill. Not only was it presented hastily but it would also likely increase the number of people without coverage by 24 million, a Congressional Budget Office report released Monday shows.
“We’re trying to do too much too quick as Republicans, we’re running through stop signs,” he said. “Slow down, get it right.”
CORRECTION: A previous version of this article stated that the total number of uninsured would be 24 million under the proposed health care bill.
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