Senator Tom Cotton says House Speaker Paul Ryan’s Obamacare replacement bill will not pass the Senate. Meanwhile, on Face the Nation, House Speaker Paul Ryan said there would be a ‘Bloodbath’ if GOP Fails to Pass Healthcare Legislation.

Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) on Sunday said he agrees with President Trump that 2018 will be a “bloodbath” for Republicans if Congress does not pass legislation repealing and replacing ObamaCare.

“I do believe that if we don’t keep our word to the people who sent us here, yeah,” Ryan told CBS News’s “Face the Nation,” when asked if he agreed with Trump’s reported comments about the 2018 midterm elections.

Ryan, who used a PowerPoint presentation to defend the House proposals last week, said during the CBS interview that members of Congress are “breaking your word” if they don’t keep campaign promises. “Look. The most important thing for a person like myself who runs for office and tells the people we’re asking to hire us, ‘This is what I’ll do if I get elected.’ And then if you don’t do that, you’re breaking your word,” he said.

Ryan’s Fear Mongering

Are we to believe that voters will switch back to Democrats (who will not reform health care) if Republicans don’t?

Ryan’s fear mongering is nonsensical. How many times has he broken his word? Is Ryan still in office?

Political Risks

The Financial Times reports Republicans Confronted by Political Risks of Obamacare Repeal.

Republicans are being confronted with the political hazards of fulfilling a core Donald Trump pledge as forecasts suggest their plan to repeal the Affordable Care Act will rip health insurance away from millions of people.

While 20m people secured health insurance under President Barack Obama’s reforms, at least 15m will lose it under the Republican plan, according to the Brookings Institution, a think-tank. S&P Global Ratings forecast that 6m-10m people would forfeit coverage.

“I’ve been involved in campaigns since 1970 and I have never seen a more politically dangerous undertaking than the way they are handling this,” said Steve Bell, a former Republican staffer on Capitol Hill.

While moderate lawmakers worry about low-income Republican voters losing health insurance, rightwingers on the other side of the party complain that the plan from the House of Representatives is insufficiently radical.

Republican leaders are braced this week for an official estimate of how their plan would affect health coverage from the Congressional Budget Office, a non-partisan body. But in anticipation of an ugly number, which could come as early as Monday, the White House has sought to undermine the CBO’s credibility.

Tom Cotton, a Republican senator from Arkansas, said the bill in its current form was a non-starter. “I would say to my friends in the House of Representatives . . . do not walk the plank and vote for a bill that cannot pass the Senate and then have to face the consequences of that vote,” he told ABC.

Paul Ryan, the House speaker who is the bill’s biggest champion, has said Republicans must “make good on our word” to repeal and replace Obamacare, which has been a party mantra in four consecutive elections.

But he has dodged questions on how many people would lose coverage under their plan, stressing instead that the change of system would be managed to minimise disruption.

Republican Dilemma

Politically speaking, it is far more likely there is a Republican bloodbath over a botched health care replacement, than no replacement at all.

Mike “Mish” Shedlock.