Failure of health-care bill prompts blast from Trump
WASHINGTON — U.S. President Donald Trump blasted congressional Democrats and “a few Republicans” Tuesday over the collapse of the GOP effort to rewrite the Obama health-care law, and warned, “We will return.”
Trump’s early-morning tweet led off a barrage of Republican criticism of Congress over the party’s failure on its flagship legislative priority. For seven years, the GOP has pledged to repeal former president Barack Obama’s law.
“Most Republicans were loyal, terrific & worked really hard,” Trump tweeted Tuesday morning. “We were let down by all of the Democrats and a few Republicans.”
He added, “As I have always said, let ObamaCare fail and then come together and do a great healthcare plan. Stay tuned!”
Two GOP senators — Utah’s Mike Lee and Jerry Moran of Kansas — sealed the measure’s doom late Monday when they announced they would vote “no” in an initial, critical vote that had been expected as soon as next week. That meant that at least four of the 52 GOP senators were ready to block the measure — two more than Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., had to spare in the face of unanimous Democratic opposition.
On the Senate floor Tuesday, McConnell conceded that the legislation repealing the 2010 law and replacing it with GOP-preferred programs “will not be successful,” essentially waving a white flag.
He said instead, the Senate would vote on legislation dismantling much of Obama’s statute that would take effect in two years, which Republicans say would give Congress time to approve replacement legislation. But such legislation seems unlikely to be approved, with many Republicans concerned the two-year gap would roil insurance markets and produce a political backlash against the GOP.
“This doesn’t have to be the end of the story,” McConnell said.
The retreat was the second stinging setback on the issue in three weeks for McConnell, whose reputation as a legislative mastermind has been marred as he’s failed to unite his chamber’s Republicans behind a health overhaul package that highlighted jagged divides between conservatives and moderates. In late June, he abandoned an initial package after he lacked enough GOP support to pass.
The episode has also been jarring for Trump, whose intermittent lobbying and nebulous, often contradictory descriptions of what he’s wanted have shown he has limited clout with senators. That despite a determination by Trump, McConnell and House Speaker Paul Ryan to demonstrate that a GOP running the White House and Congress can govern effectively.
McConnell’s failed bill would have left 22 million uninsured by 2026, according to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office, a number that many Republicans found unpalatable.
That would seem to leave McConnell with an option he described last month — negotiating with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer. That would likely be on a narrower package aimed more at keeping insurers in difficult marketplaces they're either abandoning or imposing rapidly growing premiums.
“The core of this bill is unworkable,” Schumer said in a statement. He said Republicans “should start from scratch and work with Democrats on a bill that lowers premiums, provides long-term stability to the markets and improves our health care system.”
Similar to legislation the House approved in May after its own setbacks, McConnell’s bill would repeal Obama's tax penalties on people who don’t buy coverage and cut the Medicaid program for the poor, elderly and nursing home residents.
It rolled back many of the statute’s requirements for the policies insurers can sell and eliminated many tax increases that raised money for Obama's expansion to 20 million more people, though it retained the law’s tax boosts on high earners.
Besides Lee and Moran, two other GOP senators previously declared their opposition to McConnell’s bill: moderate Maine Sen. Susan Collins and conservative Rand Paul of Kentucky. Other moderates were wavering because of the bill’s Medicaid cuts.