Senate rejects latest attempt to repeal Obamacare
Latest bill would kill program in two years
WASHINGTON — After seven years of emphatic campaign promises, Senate Republicans demonstrated Wednesday they don’t have the stomach to repeal “Obamacare” when it really counts, as the Senate voted 55-45 to reject legislation undoing major portions of Barack Obama’s law without replacing it.
Seven Republicans joined all Democrats in rejecting a measure by GOP Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky that would have repealed most of former President Obama’s health care law, with a twoyear delay but no replacement. Congress passed nearly identical legislation in 2015 and sent it to Obama, who unsurprisingly vetoed it.
Yet this time, with a president in the White House who says he’s itching to sign the bill, the measure failed on the Senate floor. The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that repealing “Obamacare” without replacing it would cost more than 30 million Americans their insurance coverage, and that was a key factor in driving away more Republican senators than Majority Leader Mitch McConnell could afford to lose in the closely divided Senate.
The result frustrated other GOP senators, some of whom expressed disbelief that their colleagues would f lipflop on legislation they had voted for only two years ago and long promised to voters. Of the current Republican senators, only moderate Susan Collins of Maine opposed the 2015 repeal bill.
“Make no mistake: Today’s vote is a major disappointment to people who were promised full repeal,” said Sen. Ben Sasse of Nebraska. “We still have a long, long way to go — both in health policy and in honesty.”
Yet the outcome was hardly a shock in a Senate that’s already shown that unity is elusive when it comes to dealing with Obamacare. The real-world implications of repeal have proven sobering to GOP senators answering to voters who’ve come to rely on expanded insurance coverage under the law.