Trump says he’ll be ‘angry’ if Senate health care bill flops
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump said Wednesday he will be “very angry” if the Senate fails to pass a revamped Republican health care bill and said Majority Leader Mitch McConnell must “pull it off,” intensifying pressure on party leaders laboring to win over unhappy GOP senators and preserve the teetering measure.
Trump’s remarks came a day before McConnell, R-Ky., planned to release his revised legislation to a closed-door meeting of GOP senators. The new legislation provides additional money aimed at easing some of the initial Medicaid cuts and makes other changes aimed at nailing down support, but internal GOP disputes lingered that were threatening to sink it.
With all Democrats set to vote no, McConnell was moving toward a do-ordie roll call next week on beginning debate, a motion that will require backing from 50 of the 52 GOP senators.
Conservative Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., said Wednesday he would oppose the motion and moderate Republican Susan Collins of Maine seemed all but sure to do the same — leaving McConnell with zero margin for error to sustain his party’s goal of toppling President Barack Obama’s health care law. Several other GOP senators were holdouts as well, leaving McConnell and his lieutenants just days to win them over or face a major defeat.
In a White House interview conducted Wednesday for the Christian Broadcasting Network’s “The 700 Club,” Trump said it was time for action by congressional Republicans who cast scores of votes “that didn’t mean anything” to repeal the 2010 law while Obama was still president. “Well, I don’t even want to talk about it because I think it would be very bad,” he said when network founder Pat Robertson what would happen if the effort fails. “I will be very angry about it and a lot of people will be very upset.”
Asked if McConnell would succeed, Trump said, “Mitch has to pull it off.”
Trump has played a limited role in cajoling GOP senators to back the legislation. Asked Wednesday about the president’s involvement, White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders told reporters the White House was providing “technical assistance.”
McConnell’s new bill was expected to offer only modest departures from the original version. Its key elements remain easing Obama’s requirements that insurers cover specified services such as hospital care and cutting the Medicaid health care program for the poor, disabled and nursing home patients. Obama’s penalties on people who don’t buy coverage would be eliminated, federal health care subsidies would be less generous and there would be $45 billion to help states combat drug abuse.
The new package would eliminate tax increases the statute imposed on the health care industry. But it would retain Obama tax boosts on upper-income people, and use the revenue to help some lower earners afford coverage.