Repeal remains a no-go in Senate

After seven years of emphatic campaign promises, Senate Republicans demonstrated Wednesday that they didn’t have the stomach to repeal Obamacare when it actually counted. The Senate voted 55-45 to reject legislation to throw out major portions of Barack Obama’s law without replacing it.

Seven Republicans joined all 48 Democrats in rejecting a measure by GOP Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky that would have repealed most of former President Obama’s 2010 health care law, with a two-year delay but no replacement. Congress passed nearly identical legislation in 2015 and sent it to Obama, who unsurprisingly vetoed it.

Yet this time, with Republican President Donald Trump in the White House 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.

went to England two weeks ago after receiving a call from the group Project Recover asking if he wanted to explore a World War II plane wreck site in the English Channel that could contain human remains.

“He came up on the last dive, didn’t feel well and collapsed,” Fliegler said.

Hottum had been with Pine Street Dental, at 138 Pine St. in Kingston, for 31 years, Fliegler said. He is survived by his wife, Peggy,

and their three adult sons Jack, Dean and Peter.

Fliegler called Hottum “a good friend ... an excellent dentist, caring to his patients ... caring to the community.”

“He didn’t let the grass grow underneath his feet,” Fliegler said.

Hottum graduated from SUNY New Paltz with a bachelor of arts in biology and then from the New York University College of Dentistry, according to the Pine Street Dental website. He completed his dental residency at Bellevue Hospital Center in New York City.

Hottum also was a New

York state emergency medical technician, a member of the Belleayre Mountain Ski Patrol and the West Point Ski Patrol, and a National Ski Patrol instructor, the website states.

He additionally was an American Safety and Health CPR instructor; taught pre-hospital care to fire, emergency medical and military personnel; and was a member of the West Hurley Fire Department and Wilderness Medical Society.

Fliegler said Hottum helped identify human remains using dental records after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror

attacks.

In recent years, Hottum became interested in efforts to locate, recover and identify the remains of U.S. World War II servicemen listed as missing in action. In the fall of 2015, he went to the Palau Islands in the Pacific with The BentProp Project, a Woodland, Calif.-based nonprofit that researches World War II wreck sites and searches for American MIAs.

Hundreds of patients and friends posted their condolences on Pine Street Dental’s Facebook page, and Fliegler said the office is dealing with distraught patients.

Fliegler said a man who had overcome a fear of dentistry with Hottum’s assistance broke down in tears after learning of the dentist’s death.

Pine Street Dental said steps were being taken to ensure the continuity of dental care for Hottum’s patients. The practice also said it was creating a memorial poster board at its front desk for patients to sign.

Carol Zucker of Ulster Park, one of Hottum’s patients, said by phone Wednesday that she’d seen the dentist for about 30

years and took her children, who now are grown, to see him as well. After the kids went off to college, Zucker said, Hottum would make sure he “squeezed them in” to his busy schedule when they were home.

“He was such a sweet man,” Zucker said. “Who likes going to the dentist? I no longer dreaded going to the dentist once I was in his care. It’s quite a loss.”

Information about funeral arrangements was not immediately available.