Republican push to end Obamacare collapses in U.S. Senate

WASHINGTON, (Reuters) - Republican efforts to overhaul or repeal Obamacare collapsed in the U.S. Senate yesterday, dealing a sharp setback to President Donald Trump and the Republican Party’s seven-year quest to kill former President Barack Obama’s signature healthcare law.

The disarray in the Republican-controlled Senate rattled financial markets as it cast doubt on the chances of getting Trump’s other domestic policy priorities, such as tax reform, through a divided Congress.

Trump said he was disappointed by the failure and suggested he might let the insurance markets created under Obamacare go under and then, potentially, work with Democrats on a rescue.

“We’re probably in that position where we’ll just let Obamacare fail,” Trump told reporters at the White House. “We will let Obamacare fail, and then the Democrats are going to come to us.”

U.S. Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell announced a vote on a straight repeal of Obamacare, which would take effect in two years, after it became clear on Monday night that he did not have enough support to pass an overhaul of the healthcare law. He said on Tuesday that

the vote would take place “early next week.”

But prospects for the repeal vote appeared doomed with at least three Republican senators voicing opposition. Moderate Republican Senators Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia, Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska quickly announced they would not back repeal. With Democrats united in opposition, Republicans can only afford to lose two votes to pass the measure in the Senate, where they have a slim 52-48 majority.

“I do not think that it’s going to be constructive to repeal a law that at this point is so interwoven within our healthcare system and then hope that over the next two years we will come up with some kind of replacement,” Collins told reporters.

The failed effort to replace Obamacare raised new concerns for U.S. health insurers over whether the government would continue to fund billions of dollars in medical benefit subsidies.