WASHINGTON -- Senate Republicans on Tuesday abruptly delayed plans to vote this week to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act after the Congressional Budget Office said their bill would leave 22 million more Americans without health insurance.
The announcement by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) mirrored one in the House in March, when the GOP leadership there pulled their bill from the floor due to lack of support.
President Donald Trump had backed both measures, even though they violated his campaign promises to provide health care for all and to leave Medicaid alone. He met with Senate Republicans at the White House later Tuesday.
"We're getting very close," Trump said. "I think we have a chance to do something very, very important for the public."
House Republicans were able to pass their bill, thanks to an amendment by Rep. Tom MacArthur (R-3rd Dist.) that attracted support from the most conservative members of their conference.
U.S. Sen. Cory Booker worried that the Senate GOP legislation would follow the same path after the July 4 recess.
"Pulling the bill is to try to whip more votes and get more GOP senators on board," said Booker (D-N.J.). "The threat is there. We've got to match their ability to whip with our ability to rouse people to resist this. We've got to match their ability to corral senators with our ability to foment more public opposition to a very, very unfortunately dangerous bill."
The health care law allowed New Jersey and other states to expand Medicaid coverage, but both the House and Senate Republican measures would cut off the extra federal funds those states now receive.
They also would give states a fixed sum to cover their residents regardless of need, rather than provide funds to help anyone eligible for the program.
The money saved -- $772 billion over 10 years under the Senate bill and $834 billion under the House legislation -- would go primarily to cut taxes for corporations and wealthy Americans.
In New Jersey, 520,000 people would lose coverage by 2021 under the Senate bill, according to a report issued Tuesday by New Jersey Policy Perspective, a progressive research group. The state would lose $21.5 billion in federal Medicaid funds through 2026, the group said.
Senate Democrats, who Republicans have excluded from any efforts to make changes to the existing health care law, spent Tuesday highlighting what they said would be the impact of the GOP legislation on individuals.
Booker and U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) joined their colleagues outside the Senate wing of the Capitol. Each senator held a large picture of a constituent able to get coverage under the Affordable Care Act.
Booker stood along side a photo of Josh Goodman of West Orange, who was able get coverage and afford treatment for his disabilities, allowing him to graduate from college. Goodman's sister, Rachel, had written to Booker to tell him of what the Affordable Care Act's expansion of health insurance meant to her brother.
Menendez's picture was of Leandra Delgado, 13, of Hamilton, who is receiving treatment for her severe and life-threatening disabilities.
The spending reductions threaten efforts to curb the problem of opioid addiction, since many of those getting help are covered under Medicaid and others could be unable to afford treatment if states take advantage of provisions in the Republican legislation and allow insurers to remove mental health and prescription drugs from their basic benefits package.
"The Republican answer to recovering addicts is, 'You're on your own,'" Menendez (D-N.J.) said at a press conference with other Democratic senators. "They sold out our health care system to a bunch of millionaires and health care executives."
MacArthur joined other members of a bipartisan House task force on opioid addiction to discuss legislation designed to address the crisis. One bill he is sponsoring would allow individuals with Health Savings Accounts to use their money to pay for drug addiction treatment for any relative.
At a press conference with other task force members, including Rep. Donald Norcross (D-1st Dist.), MacArthur declined to comment on the Senate Democratic allegations that the health care bill he supported would
"We are all committed to making sure there are adequate resources to deal with it," he said.
On the other hand, MacArthur's co-chair, Rep. Ann McLane Kuster (D-N.H.) said she was "very concerned" about the impact of the Medicaid cuts on efforts to address the opioid problem.
Democratic members of the President's Commission on Combating Drug Addiction and the Opioid Crisis, chaired by Gov. Chris Christie, expressed similar concerns during their June 16 session.
"If we make it harder and more expensive for people to get health care coverage, it's going to make this crisis worse," North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper said then.
Trump again insisted that the Affordable Care Act was 'melting down," an assertion refuted by the CBO report.
The CBO said markets were "stable in most areas" and subsidies under the current law cushioned most policyholders from higher premiums.
In addition, while premiums would drop under the Senate bill, that was only due to insurance policies offering fewer benefits.
A large number of policyholders actually would pay more for health care as insurers gained the right to exclude certain benefits from their basic package, increase deductibles and charge higher premiums for older Americans, the CBO said.
That would result in "higher out-of-pocket spending on health care than under current law," the CBO said.
Jonathan D. Salant may be reached at jsalant@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @JDSalant or on Facebook. Find NJ.com Politics on Facebook.