Page 8A
NATION/WORLD
East Oregonian
Friday, July 21, 2017
GOP leaders plan Tuesday health vote, it’s an uphill climb
WASHINGTON
(AP)
—
Republican leaders pushed toward
a Senate vote next Tuesday on
resurrecting their nearly flat-lined
health care bill. Their uphill drive
was further complicated by the
ailing GOP Sen. John McCain’s
potential absence and a dreary
report envisioning that the number
of uninsured Americans would soar.
The White House and GOP
leaders fished Thursday for ways
to win over recalcitrant senators,
including an administration proposal
to let states use Medicaid funds to
help people buy their own private
health insurance. But there were no
indications they’d ensured the votes
needed to even start debating the
party’s legislative keystone, a bill
AP Photo/Andrew Harnik
scuttling and supplanting President Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Ky. walks into the
Senate Chamber on Capitol Hill, Thursday in Washington.
Barack Obama’s health care law.
“Dealing with this issue is
what’s right for the country,” said latest bill would produce 22 million
Thursday’s report seemed
Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, additional uninsured people by unlikely to do much better to
R-Ky. He added, “It was certainly 2026 and drive up premiums for help win over balking moderate
never going to be easy, but we’ve many older Americans. Congress’ Republicans upset over millions
come a long way and I look forward nonpartisan fiscal analyst also said of voters losing coverage and cuts
to continuing our work together to it would boost typical deductibles in Medicaid, the health insurance
finally bring relief.”
— the money people must pay program for the poor. These
As leaders tested revisions that before insurers cover costs — for included Sens. Lisa Murkowski of
might attract GOP votes, others single people to $13,000 that year, Alaska, Susan Collins of Maine,
began comparing the process with well above the $5,000 they’d be Ohio’s Rob Portman and West
the trade-offs they scorned seven expected to pay under Obama’s Virginian Shelley Moore Capito.
years ago as top Democrats pushed statute.
The GOP’s fissures have
Obama’s overhaul.
“Many people with low income changed little for months.
“It’s almost becoming a bidding would not purchase any plan even if
Conservatives like Sens. Mike
process — let’s throw $50 billion it had very low premiums” because Lee of Utah and Texas’ Ted Cruz
here, let’s throw $100 billion there,” of that exorbitant deductible, the want to loosen Obama’s require-
said Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn. “It’s budget office said.
ments that insurers cover numerous
making me uncomfortable right
That dire outlook resembled one services and cap customers’ costs,
now. It’s beginning to feel a lot like the office released last month on and some want to cut spending
how Obamacare came together.”
McConnell’s initial bill, which the for Medicaid and other programs.
In a blow, the Congressional leader had to withdraw as Republi- Conservative Rand Paul, R-Ky., is
Budget Office said McConnell’s cans rebelled against it.
most interested in simply repealing
BRIEFLY
Even with Trump
warning, Mueller
likely to probe
finances
WASHINGTON (AP) —
President Donald Trump’s
growing anxiety about the
federal Russia probe has
spilled into public view with
his warning that special
counsel Robert Mueller
would be out of bounds if he
dug into the Trump family’s
finances. But that’s a line
that Mueller seems sure to
cross.
Several of Trump’s
family members and close
advisers have already
become ensnared in the
investigations, including
son Donald Trump Jr.
and son-in-law and White
House senior adviser
Jared Kushner. Probing
the family’s sprawling
business ties would bring an
investigation the president
has called a partisan “witch
hunt” even closer to the Oval
Office.
Trump told The New
York Times it would be a
“violation” of Mueller’s
formal charge if he looked
into the president’s personal
finances.
That comment came
amid news reports that the
special counsel is interested
in Trump’s business
transactions with Russians
and with one of his main
lenders, Deutsche Bank.
In the same interview
with the Times, Trump
also lashed out at Attorney
General Jeff Sessions; James
Comey, the FBI director
he fired; Andrew McCabe,
the acting FBI director who
replaced Comey, and Deputy
Attorney General Rod
Rosenstein, who appointed
the special counsel. The
president’s comments were
a reminder of Trump’s
willingness to target his own
appointees and blur lines that
have traditionally existed
between the White House
and Justice Department
investigations.
White House
spokeswoman Sarah
Huckabee Sanders said
Thursday that Trump had no
intention of firing Mueller
“at this time,” but she did
not rule out doing so in the
future.
She also reiterated
Trump’s concern about
the scope of Mueller’s
investigation, saying it
“should stay in the confines
of meddling, Russia
meddling, and the election
and nothing beyond that.”
California Rep. Adam
Schiff, top Democrat on
the House intelligence
committee, said Mueller has
the authority to investigate
any ties the Trump family
has to Russia, “including
financial, and anything that
arises. That is his duty.”
Publicly assailed
by Trump, Sessions
says he’s staying on
WASHINGTON (AP)
— Attorney General Jeff
Sessions, publicly skewered
by his boss for stepping
clear of the Russia-Trump
investigations, declared
Thursday he still loves his
job and plans to stay on. Yet
Donald Trump’s airing of his
long-simmering frustrations
with Sessions raised
significant new questions
about the future of the
nation’s top prosecutor.
The White House was
quick to insist that the
president “has confidence”
in Sessions. However,
the episode underscored
how the attorney general’s
crime-fighting agenda is
being overshadowed by his
fractured relationship with
Trump and the continuing
investigations into
allegations of Russian ties to
the Republican candidate’s
presidential campaign.
The challenges for
Sessions were laid bare
Thursday when the attorney
general, at a Justice
Department news conference
to announce the takedown
of a mammoth internet drug
marketplace, faced zero
questions about that case and
was instead grilled on his
reaction to being excoriated
by Trump in a New York
Times interview a day
earlier. The news conference
on the drug case was quickly
ended once it was clear
reporters would only ask
about the interview.
Sessions did not directly
address his relationship to
Trump except to say he was
still carrying out the agenda
of the president.
It all followed Trump’s
statements to the Times that
he never would have tapped
the former Alabama senator
for the job had he known
a recusal was coming.
Sessions took himself off
the Justice Department-led
case in March following
revelations he’d failed to
disclose his own meetings
with the Russian ambassador
to the U.S. That placed
the investigation with his
deputy, Rod Rosenstein, who
in May appointed former
FBI Director Robert Mueller
to serve as special counsel.
“It’s almost become a
bidding process let’s
throw $50 billion
here, let’s throe
$100 billion there.”
— Bob Corker,
U.S. Senator, R-Tenn.
the 2010 law. Moderates want to
ease the spending reductions and
leave consumer protections in
place.
“There’s a handful of folks who
clearly have significant reserva-
tions” about backing the bill, said
Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa. “But they
haven’t said no. They haven’t said
yes either.”
Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., a
member of the Senate leadership,
said a vote was expected Tuesday
afternoon. But senators suggested
that might change with the possible
long-term absence of McCain,
the 80-year-old Arizonan who
announced Wednesday he is battling
an aggressive brain cancer and was
home undergoing treatment.
Nursing a slender 52-48 majority
and adamant Democratic opposi-
tion, McConnell has been unable
to muster the 50 GOP votes he’d
need to approve his party’s health
care overhaul. Vice President Mike
Pence would cast the tiebreaking
vote. Without McCain, the bill
would fall if just two Republicans
vote against it, and more than that
have said they’re ready to do so.
Looking for leverage, McCo-
nnell and his lieutenants were
arguing that Republicans should
back the initial procedural vote to
begin debate. Should it pass, they
reasoned, senators could force votes
on any amendments they chose to
propose.
In reality, senators were aware
that that procedural vote would be
viewed as a vote on whatever health
care package leaders were pushing,
perhaps reflecting changes nego-
tiated with GOP senators. Several
senators said leaders still hadn’t
decided what that might be.
Asked if senators would know
beforehand what they’d be voting
on Tuesday, the No. 2 Senate GOP
leader, John Cornyn of Texas, told
reporters, “That’s a luxury we don’t
have.” Cornyn spokesman Drew
Brandewie later said the lawmaker
was referring to the unpredictability
of the final shape of the bill after
amendment votes.
McConnell
presented
his
reworked bill last week after adding
$45 billion to help states combat
overdoses of drugs including
opioids and $70 billion to help
insurers control consumers’ costs. It
also retained tax increases Obama
placed on wealthier people to help
finance his coverage expansion to
20 million additional people.
And it included a Cruz provision,
crucial for winning conservatives’
votes, letting insurers sell low-cost
policies with minimal coverage.
Conservatives say it will reduce
premiums, but opponents say it
would result in healthy people
buying the cheap policies, leaving
many with serious medical condi-
tions unable to afford the fuller
coverage they need.
®
contain a bomb, and
pulling more people out of
airport lines for additional
screening.
A spokesman for the
Department of Homeland
Security said Thursday that
all airlines and airports with
flights departing for the
U.S. had met the agency’s
first phase of new security
measures, which were
announced in late June but
not described in any detail.
In March, the U.S.
imposed a ban on laptops in
the cabins of planes coming
into the country from 10
Middle Eastern airports.
This week, King Khalid
International Airport in
Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, was
the last of the 10 to comply
with U.S. security measures
and exit the laptop-ban list.
Homeland Security
Secretary John Kelly said
the ban was a stopgap
measure until airports
could make other security
improvements.
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Lisa Newman, CWS®
Mark Hales, CWS®
Senior Financial Advisor
lnewman@dadco.com
Senior Vice President,
Financial Advisor
mhales@dadco.com
• Wealth Management
• Financial Planning
• Investments
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U.S. says ban on
laptops in airplane
cabins lifted
DALLAS (AP) — The
ban on laptops in the cabins
of planes flying from the
Middle East to the U.S. is
over, as federal officials
say that large airports in the
region have taken other steps
to increase security.
Those measures include
checking electronic devices
to make sure they don’t
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evec more valuable to the commucities that we serve.