Senator John McCain, Obamacare savior-turned-nemesis?
Senator John McCain, Obamacare savior-turned-nemesis? Mark Wilson / Getty Images

If you thought the Republican effort to repeal Obamacare had already failed so many times that it had been absolutely, totally dead and done—nope.

Everyone from Paul Krugman to Jeet Heer and David Leonhardt is warning that if the citizen activists who rattled Congress's cage in support of Obamacare earlier this year don't get back into the game quickly, a new repeal measure known as the "Graham-Cassidy bill" could actually pass the senate.

Graham-Cassidy would, those writers warn, "radically overhaul health care and roll back the Affordable Care Act’s expansion of coverage" and "would eliminate the individual mandate, undermine if not effectively eliminate protection for people with pre-existing conditions, and slash funding for subsidies and Medicaid."

Leonhardt, amid concerns that John McCain himself might get behind this effort, describes this moment as yet another defining, highly consequential test of McCain's principles—you know, the ones he made such a big deal about when he dramatically returned to the Senate to kill Obamacare earlier this year.

"Passing [Graham-Cassidy] would violate every standard that McCain laid down," Leonhardt writes.

Indivisible, the group that has helped organize a good bit of the Obamacare resistance over the course of this year, is warning: "TrumpCare is back. REPEAT: TrumpCare is back."

It's also highlighting the way Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is now maneuvering to prevent Graham-Cassidy from having a full score from the Congressional Budget Office before any vote. If the bill doesn't have a full score, we won't know—as we did with previous repeal attempts—how many people stand to lose coverage or face higher premiums under the new measure.

As always, Indivisible has handy tools to use in helping to stop this train—even if you're sitting in a blue state (like ours) with two liberal senators who support Obamacare.

Recalling Hillary Clinton's unexpected defeat, Krugman warns: "If you care about preserving the huge gains the A.C.A. has brought, make your voice heard. Otherwise we may wake up to another terrible morning after."