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

Donald Trump says Graham-Cassidy bill has ‘very good chance’ of passing as Mitch McConnell prepares to bring Obamacare repeal measure to floor

The US Senate is seeking 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 seen as a last-gasp effort to tear down 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 were “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 before 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 budgetary 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.

Donald Trump on Wednesday weighed into the healthcare debate again, saying he believed Graham-Cassidy had a “very good chance”, with support from “47 or 48” senators and “a lot of others … looking at it very positively”. Previous attempts attracted similar levels of support yet failed to reach 50.

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.

Obama said: “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.

“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 having 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 has been 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 that 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 said 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.”

Later on Wednesday, Trump tweeted that he would not sign the healthcare legislation if it weakened protections for sicker Americans, which analysis and reporting has shown would be a consequence of the measure.

Elsewhere, the House minority leader, Nancy Pelosi, attacked 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.”

• This article was corrected on 21 September to remove paragraphs that said Lindsey Graham was overheard talking to John McCain on the phone about the legislation. It was actually TV presenter Sean Hannity that Graham was speaking to, not Senator McCain