Summary: The Senate health care bill died on Monday night.
On Monday evening, two new Republican senators defected from their party and killed the Senate health care bill. The bill needed three “no” votes to end its time in Congress, and the two senators from Utah and Kansas joined Maine’s Susan Collins and Kentucky’s Rand Paul, who had already defected.
Hearing the news, President Donald Trump tweeted on Monday that the Republicans should focus on repealing Obamacare and not just repealing and replacing.
“Republicans should just REPEAL failing ObamaCare now & work on a new Health care Plan that will start from a clean slate. Dems will join in!” Trump tweeted.
On Tuesday, Trump added a thinly veiled reference to the defecting Republicans, noting that they were not loyal to the party.
“We were let down by all of the Democrats and a few Republicans. Most Republicans were loyal, terrific & worked really hard. We will return!” Trump tweeted.
The Republicans Trump was most likely referencing were Senator Mike Lee of Utah and Jerry Moran of Kansas. The two newbies said on Monday that they would not support putting the controversial Trumpcare bill to a vote on the floor. After Collins and Paul announced their decision to vote “no,” Lee and Moran decided to work together to defect to help ease some of the back lash they predicted they’d receive, according to CNN.
“We should not put our stamp of approval on bad policy,” Moran said in a statement.
In late June, the bill was unveiled after it had been revised in secret, and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell had pressed for a vote to happen in as little as a week. The vote was stalled, however, when Republican Senator John McCain who planned to vote “yes” needed emergency surgery. Moran said that the Republicans “closed-door process” in drafting the Senate bill did not address health care costs.
Lee’s statement mentioned that he had spoken to experts and after their analysis, he knew he could not support the bill.
“After conferring with trusted experts regarding the latest version of the Consumer Freedom Amendment, I have decided I cannot support the current version of the Better Care Reconciliation Act,” said the statement attributed to Sen. Lee. “In addition to not repealing all of the Obamacare taxes, it doesn’t go far enough in lowering premiums for middle-class families; nor does it create enough free space from the most costly Obamacare regulations.”
Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky had said that he would vote against the bill for similar reasons that Moran presented.
Senator Susan Collins of Maine opposed the bill because it removes protections for people with pre-existing health conditions and cuts Medicaid.
According to Buzzfeed, “The development puts the GOP leadership’s bid to repeal and replace Obamacare in crisis. Unless two of these four senators change their mind, the bill is dead. And other senators who have yet to declare could also end up voting against the bill.”
Senate Majority Leader McConnell said on Monday that the repeal and replace of Obamacare was not a success.
“Regretfully, it is now apparent that the effort to repeal and immediately replace the failure of Obamacare will not be successful,” McConnell said.
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