The latest Republican effort to repeal/replace the Affordable Care Act, the Cassidy-Graham bill, is meeting with some pretty heated rhetoric in opposition — on both sides of the aisle (at least outside of Congress).

Among other critiques, the Washington Post reports, the bill would “devolve federal health spending and policy authority to states and could cause millions to lose health insurance.” And not every Republican is happy about it.

Democrats, of course, are furious, particularly since the Congressional Budget Office has indicated that it won’t be able to provide a full breakdown of fallout, should the bill become law, until next week — and that’s past the deadline Republicans have set for themselves to pass the bill with a mere 51 votes. If they can’t ram the bill through before September 30, they’ll have to get some Democratic support for the measure — something that’s more in line with pink elephants rather than gray ones.

But the opposition had intended to hammer home figures that they believe will kill the bill among moderate Republicans — the numbers of people who would lose coverage, the contribution of the bill to the deficit and just how high premiums would go under its terms.

Huffington Postreports that a bipartisan group of governors has already spoken out against the latest attempt to kill the ACA, sending a letter to Mitch McConnell, R-KY, Senate majority leader, calling for a bipartisan effort to change the health care system—not a piece of one-sided GOP legislation.

The letter reads in part, “We ask you to support bipartisan efforts to bring stability and affordability to our insurance markets. Legislation should receive consideration under regular order, including hearings in health committees and input from the appropriate health-related parties.”

The governors add, “Improvements to our health insurance markets should control costs, stabilize the market, and positively impact coverage and care of millions of Americans, including many who are dealing with mental illness, chronic health problems, and drug addiction.”

The Washington Post breakdown of the bill appears to confirm that this particular piece of legislation will do none of these. In fact, it says, “The proposal, crafted by Sens. Bill Cassidy, R-LA, Lindsey O. Graham, R-SC and Dean Heller, R-NV, essentially turns control of the health care markets over to the states.”

But rather than funding Medicaid and subsidies directly, that money would be put into a block grant that a state could use to develop any health-care system it wants — except for one, if another Republican senator has his way. That one health care system that’s not wanted, according to Huffington Post, is targeted by a proposed amendment from Sen. John Kennedy, R-LA, that would prevent any state in the country from setting up a single-payer system.

In addition, Medicaid expansion and subsidy funding, according to the breakdown, would be cut sharply compared to current spending, going to zero in a decade.

Very public opposition to the bill includes a dissection of the bill by Sen. Chris Murphy, D-CT, on Twitter — in which he calls the bill “an intellectual and moral garbage truck fire”—and another assault not just on the bill but on one of the writers of the bill by Jimmy Kimmel.

And while in their quest to beat the Sept. 30 deadline, Republicans are pressuring the holdouts from last time, with particular efforts aimed at Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-AK, the public might once again turn the tide the other way—particularly if enough late-night TV viewers were watching Kimmel, who had gone public in June with the news that his newborn son had a serious health condition—and would have died could his parents not have afforded his care. Cassidy publicly said at the time that any health care bill that passed should have to pass the “Jimmy Kimmel test,” which breaks down to “No family should be denied medical care, emergency or otherwise, because they can’t afford it.”

In Kimmel’s latest weigh-in on the health care law, however, he went directly after Cassidy, saying, “Not only did Bill Cassidy fail the Jimmy Kimmel test, he failed the Bill Cassidy test.”

“This guy, Bill Cassidy, just lied to my face,” Kimmel said on his program, referring to the latest GOP health care bill iteration. Talking about the three Republicans who voted against the last attempt to kill the ACA (John McCain, R-AZ, Murkowski and Susan Collins, R-ME), Kimmel said, “I hope they have the courage and good sense to do that again with this one because these other guys who claim they want Americans to have better health care ... they’re trying to sneak this scam of a bill they cooked up in.” He added, “They don’t even want you to see it.”

Instant Insights /

New GOP repeal attempt met with bipartisan opposition

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