Trump fumes over revolt
ATTEMPTS TO REPLACE OBAMACARE DASHED Senators will vote on apparently already doomed bill early next week.
An angry President Donald Trump railed on Tuesday against dissenters in his party who dashed his months-long effort to dismantle his predecessor’s landmark health care law, as moderates balked at Republican plans to scrap Obamacare without a replacement.
With several efforts to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act (ACA) now squashed, the Senate’s top Republican said he would forge ahead with what could be a last-gasp vote – on a new plan to kill off most of the 2010 reforms of Trump’s predecessor with no replacement at the ready.
A vote to proceed to the Bill will be held “early next week”, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell told colleagues, even though the effort appeared doomed, with three Republicans declaring their opposition to the plan.
The previous day, four Republicans had lined up against McConnell’s earlier health overhaul, flat-lining it in the chamber, where the party can afford only two defectors in order to get the measure passed.
And with Senator John McCain home in Arizona through this week and perhaps longer as he recovers from surgery to remove a blood clot, the room for maneuver is even narrower.
McConnell nonetheless prepared to force a vote to see where his members stood on his latest ploy, the repeal-only measure.
The dramatic implosion effectively means that Trump, who marks his first half-year in office today, has no major legislative victory in hand, squandering months of political capital.
Trump fired off a morning tweet storm complaining about how he was “let down” by Democrats “and a few Republicans” opposed to the repeal.
He had campaigned relentlessly on a pledge to abolish most of the ACA, proclaiming at an October campaign rally that it would be “so easy” to immediately repeal and replace the law.
McConnell’s new bid would repeal much of Obamacare outright, but with a two-year delay, in order to allow Congress time to craft a replacement. – AFP