US health shake-up blow

FACING a potentially disastrous defeat by members of his own party, US Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has delayed a vote on healthcare legislation that has been a top Republican priority as he scrambles to win more support.

President Donald Trump summoned all 52 Republican senators to the White House to discuss how to proceed after party leaders failed to win over a small band of Republican holdouts.

“We’re going to talk and we’re going to see what we can do. We’re getting very close,” Mr Trump told senators as the meeting began.

Senator McConnell had been pushing for a vote ahead of the July 4 recess that starts at the end of this week.

The legislation would repeal major elements of Obam- acare and shrink the Medicaid government healthcare program for the poor, which was expanded under Democratic former president Barack Obama’s signature domestic legislative achievement.

Senator McConnell, whose party has a razor-thin majority in the 100-member Senate, said Republican leaders were still working to get the 50 votes needed to pass the Bill.

Vice President Mike Pence could provide the crucial vote needed to break a tie.

Moderate Republicans worried that millions of people would lose their insurance. Conservatives said the Bill does not do enough to erase Obamacare.

The Bill’s prospects were not helped by a Congressional Budget Office analysis on Monday saying the measure would cause 22 million Americans to lose insurance over the next decade, although it would reduce the federal deficit by $US321 billion over that period.

Meanwhile, the agency in charge of US border security plans to start building prototypes for Mr Trump’s proposed wall with Mexico later this northern summer.

Ronald Vitiello, Customs and Border Protection’s acting deputy commissioner, said four to eight companies would get contracts for prototypes in San Diego that could be models for the 3200km border. Companies will have 30 days to complete the models.

Mr Vitiello says it’s impractical to build a wall on about 209km of border where there are already natural barriers, like lakes or canyons. Mr Trump’s budget proposal for 2018 includes $1.6 billion for 118km of wall in Texas’s Rio Grande Valley and San Diego.