Senate aims for healthcare vote next week as Obama condemns repeal effort

The US Senate seeks to vote next week on Republicans’ latest attempt to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act (ACA), it was confirmed on Wednesday, as Barack Obama castigated their “aggravating” multiple attempts to “undo that hard-won progress”.

Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader, intends to hold a vote on what is being seen as a last-gasp effort to repeal and replace the ACA, popularly known as Obamacare, in a sign that Republicans believe they have the momentum to push through this bill.

“It is the leader’s intention to consider Graham-Cassidy on the floor next week,” said David Popp, a spokesman for McConnell, after a round of morning meetings with members of his caucus.

The latest repeal effort, authored by the Republican senators Lindsey Graham, of South Carolina, and Bill Cassidy, of Louisiana, would transfer billions of dollars of federal spending under the ACA to states in the form of block grants, eliminate the law’s mandate that all Americans have insurance coverage or face a penalty, and carve out deep cuts to Medicaid, the national insurance program for low-income families.

Earlier on Wednesday, Graham told reporters that Republicans did not yet have the requisite 50 votes to pass the bill, with the vice-president, Mike Pence, breaking the tie, but said Republicans are “inside the five-yard line”.

Republicans can only afford to lose the votes of two GOP senators, and at least one, Rand Paul of Kentucky, has said he is firmly opposed. Still, a number of Republicans have voiced “concerns” with the effort and the fast-track process leadership is using to rush the bill to the floor ahead of the 30 September deadline.

Republicans have until the end of the month to pass a healthcare bill on a party-line vote. Reconciliation, the process that allows lawmakers to pass budget legislation with a simple majority, expires on 30 September. After that, budgetary legislation must clear a 60-vote threshold, making it far less likely that Republicans will win enough votes to dramatically restructure the ACA.

In New York, at a Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation event on meeting global sustainable development goals, Obama defended the Affordable Care Act, his signature domestic achievement, saying that while it “wasn’t perfect”, the healthcare law had made a difference to the lives of more than 90% of Americans.

“When I see people trying to undo that hard-won progress, for the 50th or 60th time, with bills that would raise costs or reduce coverage, or roll back protections for older Americans or people with pre-existing conditions, the cancer survivor, the expecting mom or the child with autism or asthma for whom coverage would once again be unattainable, it is aggravating,” Obama said.

“And all of this being done without any demonstrable economic or actuarial or plain commonsense rationale – it frustrates.”

TV’s Jimmy Kimmel says bill author ‘lied to his face’

The renewed efforts by Republicans to dismantle the healthcare law have prompted a wave of backlash, namely for gutting coverage of pre-existing conditions by paving the way for insurers to once again charge sick people higher premiums or deny them coverage entirely.

Jimmy Kimmel, the late-night talkshow host who opened up about his newborn son undergoing open heart surgery in May, skewered Cassidy for “lying to his face”.

In a lengthy monologue on Tuesday night, Kimmel recalled how Cassidy had appeared on his program in May and agreed with what the comedian has dubbed the “Jimmy Kimmel test” – that no family should be denied medical care because they cannot afford it. “Most of the congresspeople who vote on this bill probably won’t even read it. And they want us to do the same thing,” Kimmel said. “They want us to treat it like an iTunes service agreement. And this guy, Bill Cassidy, just lied right to my face.”

Cassidy responded to Kimmel in an interview with CNN on Wednesday, stating: “I’m sorry he does not understand … Everybody fears change,” Cassidy said. “Even if it’s worse to better, they don’t want change.”

The atmosphere was similarly testy on Capitol Hill, where Graham, who is typically jovial in the hallways, lost his patience when a reporter pointed out states would be able to opt out of covering pre-existing conditions.

“Where are you getting this garbage? Where are you getting this garbage?” Graham told NBC News. “That’s complete garbage.”

Graham added that Kimmel “heard some liberal talking points” about the bill and “bought it hook, line, and sinker”.

“He went on national TV and called this man, who has worked for the underprivileged and healthcare all of his life, a liar,” Graham said, standing alongside Cassidy. “I think that’s inappropriate.”

Elsewhere, the House minority leader, Nancy Pelosi, slammed Republicans for pursuing a closed-door healthcare process she likened to “anti-governance”.

“I don’t think most Republicans have the faintest idea what’s in that bill,” Pelosi told reporters at a press conference on Capitol Hill. “This is really a stinkeroo, this bill.”