Senators Revise Health Bill in Last-Ditch Effort to Win Votes
With time running short, the authors of the latest plan to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act shifted money in the bill to Alaska and Maine, which are represented by Republican senators who appear reluctant to support it.
The revised version of the bill, written by Senators Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, would provide extra money for an unnamed “high-spending low-density state,” a last-minute change seemingly aimed at Alaska and its holdout Republican senator, Lisa Murkowski, who has yet to say how she will vote. It would also send money toward Maine, whose Republican senator, Susan Collins, had said earlier on Sunday that she would almost certainly vote no.
Mr. Cassidy circulated a table on Sunday showing the state-by-state impact of the revised bill from 2020 to 2026. It indicated that Alaska would receive 3 percent more money under the bill than under current law, while Maine would get 43 percent more. . .