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Schumer: Senate will vote again on $35 insulin cap after GOP blocked it

Schumer: Senate will vote again on $35 insulin cap after GOP blocked it

Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (DN.Y.) said Monday night that he is going to bring a $35 cap on patients’ insulin costs back up for a vote this fall after Republicans blocked it over the weekend.

“They blocked a $35 price for insulin for non-Medicare people,” Schumer said on MSNBC’s “The Rachel Maddow Show.” “We’re going to come back and make them vote on that again.”

The move can help put pressure on Republicans and highlight what Democrats view as a winning issue ahead of November’s midterm elections.

Democrats hammered Republicans for voting against the $35 cap over the weekend.

That vote came up in the context of overruling the parliamentarian’s decision that applying the $35 cap to people with private health insurance violated the complicated Senate rules Democrats were using to bypass a GOP filibuster.

Seven Republicans still voted with all 50 Democrats, three short of the 60 votes needed, and it is possible more Republicans would support it if it came up as a standalone measure, not in the context of a Senate rules vote.

“We got all 50 Democrats,” Schumer said in a separate interview Monday on NPR. “We did get seven Republicans. We’re going to bring that back in the fall, because there’s going to be huge heat on Republicans.”

Schumer did not specify whether he would bring the $35 cap up by itself or as part of a larger, bipartisan insulin measure from Sens. Jeanne Shaheen (DN.H.) and Susan Collins (R-Maine), which had previously faced difficulties gaining enough GOP support.

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) suggested Monday he would support a $35 cap if it came up again.

“Vote on the cap was not [about] insulin It was [about] Others ignoring budget rules,” I have tweeted. “Dear colleagues join me in supporting the Collins-Shaheen bill to cap insulin at $35 & enact [pharmacy benefit manager] reforms in a bipartisan way.”

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These seven GOP senators voted to keep $35 insulin cap in reconciliation bill

These seven GOP senators voted to keep $35 insulin cap in reconciliation bill

Seven Republican senators voted with all 50 Democrats to maintain a $35 monthly cap on the price of insulin in the Democrats’ $700 billion climate, health and tax reconciliation bill.

The measure targeting people not covered by Medicare was ultimately blocked from being included in the Inflation Reduction Act when it fell three votes short of the 60 required to override a ruling from the parliament Senatearian.

The seven Republicans who voted with Democrats were Sens. Bill Cassidy (La.), Susan Collins (Maine), Josh Hawley (Mo.), Cindy Hyde-Smith (Miss.), John Kennedy (La.), Lisa Murkowski (Alaska ) and Dan Sullivan (Alaska).

Many of the seven Republicans who supported the measure have been vocal in their criticism of the reconciliation package broadly — and all of them voted against the bill as a whole.

Democrats won a partial victory when the parliamentarian allowed the $35 insulin cap to apply to Medicare beneficiaries, which could influence prices in the private market.

The Inflation Reduction Act passed the Senate Sunday 51-50, with Vice President Kamala Harris casting the tiebreaker vote.

“While I don’t oppose everything in it, there is no doubt in my mind, based on both substance & process, the Senate should not have passed it,” Murkowski wrote on Twitter after the passage.

Kennedy had proposed his own amendment related to insulin costs, but ended up siding with the Democrats on theirs — though he called his colleagues across the aisle “a special kind of stupid” for the tax increases in the so-called Inflation Reduction Act.

“Democrats’ tax and spending spree will do nothing to decrease inflation, but will raise the tax bill falling on everyday Americans,” Cassidy wrote on Twitter Sunday. “I proudly voted no.”

Hyde-Smith released a statement calling the legislation “a long, forced march toward more economic hardship and more government in our lives.”

The reconciliation bill came out of an agreement between Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (DN.Y.) and Sen. Joe Manchin (DW.Va.), and is aimed at investing in domestic energy and lowering prescription drug costs by closing tax loopholes on wealthy individuals and corporations.

The Hill has reached out to the offices of GOP senators who supported the insulin cap for comment.

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Bipartisan compromise bill would restore abortion rights

Bipartisan compromise bill would restore abortion rights

WASHINGTON (AP) — A bipartisan group of senators is pushing compromise legislation to restore abortion access in the wake of the Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, a long shot effort to put a majority of the Senate on the record opposing the decision.

While the bill is not expected to pass — and is unlikely to even get a vote — the legislation introduced by two Republicans and two Democrats on Monday is intended to send a signal to state legislatures and the public that a majority of the Senate supports codifying Roe , even if they can’t get the necessary 60 votes to pass it in the 50-50 Senate.

“We still think there is utility in showing there is a bipartisan majority that would want to codify Roe,” even though the bill doesn’t have enough votes, said Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia, who introduced the legislation with Democratic Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona and Republican Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska.

The legislation would prohibit most state regulations that prevent abortion access before fetal viability, generally considered to be around 24 weeks. It would allow state restrictions after that point, as long as the mother’s life is protected. It would also protect access to contraception, an issue after Justice Clarence Thomas suggested in a concurring opinion to the decision overturning Roe that decisions guaranteeing access to contraception and other rights may need to be revisited.

The bipartisan bill is narrower than legislation preferred by most Democrats — passed by the House but blocked by Senate Republicans — that would have protected abortion rights and expanded them beyond what was allowed in the landmark 1972 Roe v. wade decision. Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, Collins and Murkowski all voted against that bill despite opposition to the overturning of Roe.

Kaine said he felt like Democrats “left votes on the table” after that effort. He said he was encouraged by a new law designed to reduce gun violence that passed the House and Senate after horrific shootings in Texas and New York.

“There were not 60 votes either” for that legislation until members decided that inaction was no longer an option, he said.

Democrats would need 10 Republican votes to overcome a filibuster and get a bill through the 50-50 Senate, but only Collins and Murkowski have publicly backed abortion rights.

By overturning Roe, the court has allowed states to enact strict abortion limits, including many that had previously been deemed unconstitutional. The ruling is expected to lead to abortion bans in roughly half of the states.

Already, a number of GOP-controlled states have moved quickly to curtail or outlaw abortion, while states controlled by Democrats have sought to champion access. Voters now rank abortion as among the most pressing issues facing the country, a shift in priorities that Democrats hope will reshape the political landscape in their favor for the midterm elections.

The support of Kaine and Sinema, a moderate, comes as some activists have accused President Joe Biden and other top Democrats of failing to respond forcefully enough to the decision.

Kaine said there is an increased sense of urgency since the June decision, and suggested he or others may go to the floor at some point and request a vote, an effort that is unlikely to succeed but could call attention to the bill as majorities of Americans say they disagree with the Supreme Court decision.

“People are paying attention to it,” Kaine said.

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