Fasten your seatbelts, it's gonna be a bumpy ride...

 

(yes, I know she actually says "bumpy night"...I'll update the title this evening if need be...)

OK...here's where things stood as of last night...

UPDATE 7/27/17 12:00pm: OK, here's the latest (at least, as of around noon, anyway):

Apparently, in order to win over a few more votes and squeeze the bill in under the "budget savings" wire, they're now planning on scrapping repeal of the medical device tax and delaying repeal of the employer mandate (but still repealing it eventually). They're also going to throw in defunding Planned Parenthood even though that was previously scrapped by the Senate parlimentarian.

Finally, they're apparently bringing back the Essential Health Benefit State Waiver provision, which would, once again, blow a massive hole in the "Guaranteed Issue and Community Rating" rules.

At first I assumed keeping the employer mandate would reduce the projected coverage loss by 4 million, but Loren Adler pointed out that a) the mandate would still be scrapped, just not right away (so the 2026 impact wouldn't change), and apparently they only expect about 500K of that 4 million to be due specifically to that--the other 3.5 million would mainly consist of people working for small businesses (companies under 50 employees, which aren't subject to the employer mandate anyway) dropping their employer coverage because of the individual mandate being repealed, some of whom would then shift to individual market coverage instead.

Confusing I agree, but I think this is what it would look like in practice:

UPDATE 7/27/17 12:50pm: OK, that was fast...apparently the Senate Parlimentarian has already ruled that the State EHB Waivers aren't kosher under reconciliation rules after all, so presumably they're out. Still no word on Planned Parenthood defunding.

The EHB waiver denial is a big deal for the Senate bill, but it's a huge deal in terms of the House bill (AHCA)...because those waivers are supposedly a big part of the reason several GOP Representatives voted for the AHCA in the first place. If they aren't allowed no matter what, that could be a game changer for the endgame....

Meanwhile, on the Senate side, this brings things back to this...

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