The Senate GOP health care bill doesn’t repeal Obamacare; it replaces Medicaid

So what’s in the health care legislation that Senate Republicans unveiled yesterday? Here’s NBC’s Benjy Sarlin: “The 142-page Senate health care bill released on Thursday is easy to summarize: It cuts health care spending for low-income and middle-income Americans and uses the savings to finance large tax cuts for the wealthy and the medical industry. How it accomplishes this is simple as well: It makes large cuts to Medicaid and to subsidies for private insurance, meaning large chunks of money that the government would have spent on helping Americans afford coverage, pay for long-term care and reduce their out-of-pocket costs would instead be paid either by states or by the customers themselves.” As Axios’ Justin Green puts it, “The health care bill Senate Republicans unveiled yesterday would not replace Obamacare. It would replace Medicaid.” Indeed, that’s why conservative policy wonks like Philip Klein aren’t happy with the legislation. "[T]he draft legislation unveiled by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., reads less like an Obamacare repeal bill and more like an Obamacare rescue package,” Klein writes. The question for Republicans: Do they view the legislative through a policy lens — or a political one?

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