WASHINGTON _ Senate Democrats might not be able to stop Republicans from tearing up President Barack Obama's signature health care law, but they were seeking late Wednesday to make it as uncomfortable as possible.
Taking advantage of an arcane Senate tradition known as a "vote-a-rama," party leaders were prepared to go late into the night to force Republicans to take votes on popular provisions of the 2010 Affordable Care Act, warning that the party could spark chaos by repealing the legislation that has extended health insurance to millions.
"If Republicans go forward with this plan, they may mollify their base, but they will ostracize and hurt the American people, and ultimately lose in the court of public opinion," said Senate Democratic Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y.
The late-night voting marathon came as some Republicans have expressed unease with the speed of the repeal, especially because the party has been unable to agree on a replacement.
The votes to amend the budget resolution that Republicans plan to use to repeal the health care act are purely symbolic, but Democrats sought to use them to draw sharp contrasts between the political parties, and in some cases to exploit Republican divisions.
To that end, Democrats sought to put Republican fiscal hawks in a box, filing amendments to the budget resolution that would force them to vote against cost-cutting measures that they traditionally would support. The Senate earlier this week rejected a change to the budget resolution proposed by Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky. who said it would have balanced the federal budget over five years.
The budget resolution currently says the "appropriate levels of the public debt" would rise from the current $20 trillion to $29.1 trillion in 10 years, but Republican leaders say the numbers in the resolution are meaningless because they don't include the effect of repealing the health care law. That would come later, the measure's sponsor, Sen. Mike Enzi, R-Wyo., told senators as debate began Wednesday.
"This bill has budget numbers reflective of where we are, not where we'd like to be," Enzi said.
That will happen later, Republican leaders say, noting the resolution is only a first step in repeal and requires only 51 Senate votes to advance, instead of the 60 usually needed to limit debate.
Several Republicans who were worried about the political perils of a rapid repeal planned to offer an amendment that would push the deadline for delivering the plan to repeal to March 3, rather than Jan. 27, a week after President-elect Donald Trump takes office.
"That would give us a lot more time to do a good job coming up with a replacement," Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, said outside the Senate chamber, citing the "complexities" of repealing the legislation. She said a number of Republicans have ideas and plans to replace the law, "but to reach a consensus, we could really use that additional time."
The votes on the measure came hours after Trump increased the pressure on his fellow Republicans, suggesting at his first press conference since winning the election that he'd introduce his own bill and expected a speedy, near-simultaneous repeal and replace.
Collins said she agreed with Trump that the two actions should be closely paired, but said it may take more time: "I don't see any possibility of us being able to come up with a comprehensive reform bill that would replace Obamacare by the end of this month," she said. "I just don't see that as being feasible."
As the night began, Democrats offered amendments to protect individual provisions of the 2010 law and to put Republicans on the spot by forcing them to vote against popular measures.
"If you really want to rile up the senior citizens of this country, then you start taking away their prescription drugs," Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., argued on the Senate floor in support of his amendment which he said would prevent would prevent scrapping Affordable Care Act provisions aimed at closing the gap in Medicare's prescription drug coverage, commonly known as the "donut hole." Nelson said the measure has helped seniors in Florida save nearly $1,000 a year on prescription drugs.
But as he would throughout the night, Enzi, the Wyoming senator, shot him down: The measure was "outside the scope of what's appropriate," Enzi told Nelson. A vote in favor, he added, would be "a vote against repealing Obamacare."
The amendments ranged from the serious to pointed political rhetoric. Sen. Joe Manchin, a West Virginia Democrat, offered an amendment protesting that repeal could cut treatments for substance abuse and worsen opioid abuse. A Harvard Medical School and New York University review released Wednesday estimated that repeal could drain as much as $5.5 billion a year from treatment for mental and substance use disorders.
Already declared "out of order" before the session began was Democratic vice presidential candidate Sen. Tim Kaine's bid to "prohibit legislation to make America sick again" _ the slogan Democrats have adopted to criticize the repeal effort by playing off Trump's iconic "Make America Great Again" rallying cry.
Two hours into the overnighter, boxes of pizzas were delivered to the Senate floor. And Sen. Todd Young, R-Ind., arrived with baskets of Indiana popcorn, caramels, Red Bull and Diet Mountain Dew.
"It's going to be a late night," he said, offering the provisions to reporters outside the chamber. "I wanted to bring on the Indiana."
Four years ago, the vote-a-rama took 13 hours, involved voting on 101 amendments and ended at 4:56 a.m. In 2015, the marathon began in the afternoon, involved 40 amendments and lasted until 4:22 a.m. the next day.
Not all the amendments were about health care: Sen. Martin Heinrich, D-N.M., offered an amendment that would block efforts to sell off public land to reduce the federal deficit.
