The Senate Can’t Pass Health Care Without This Man

Bill Cassidy, the first-term Republican senator from Louisiana, thinks the House’s Obamacare repeal bill failed to consider the impact it will have on one crucial constituency: patients. A medical doctor whose political life was forged in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and during decades working in a charity hospital, Cassidy wants a more robust replacement for Obamacare, one that lives up to Donald Trump’s campaign promise to replace it with a law that covers more people at a lower cost.

That might sound like wishful thinking, yet if Senate Republicans want to do anything on health care, they have no choice but to listen to Cassidy. Although he wasn’t included in the 13-member working group tasked with crafting a Senate bill, Cassidy has emerged as perhaps the most critical vote—the elusive Republican who can make or break Trump’s top legislative priority.