 The Senate Republican health-care bill would go beyond repealing parts of Obamacare to drastically restructure Medicaid. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images) By Max Ehrenfreund Throughout the modern history of Congress, lawmakers have inexorably expanded progressive social policies, and while conservatives have successfully forestalled expansions to the social safety net, they've had very little success in reversing them. Right now, however, Republicans have a chance to buck that trend, as they prepare legislation aimed at repealing and replacing the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare. The Senate bill released on Thursday, coupled with the House bill passed earlier this year, would be exactly the kind of cuts to the welfare state that conservatives have consistently failed to achieve. The repeal measure, which follows weeks of unusual secrecy in its drafting, would bring down taxes, eliminate hundreds of billions of dollars in outlays on the social safety net and curtail the federal government's involvement in a crucial sector of the economy. The American right has had few chances to enact such far-reaching legislation.
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Chart of the day The price of insulin just keeps going up. Carolyn Y. Johnson has more. 
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