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Majority Leader Mitch McConnell yanks the latest GOP “Obamacare” overhaul plan from Senate consideration.
WASHINGTON - In a major setback, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell yanked the latest GOP “Obamacare” overhaul plan from Senate consideration Tuesday, conceding that Republicans did not have the votes for the GOP’s last-ditch push to repeal the Affordable Care Act.
The Kentucky Republican had planned to bring the bill, crafted by Sens. Lindsey Graham and Bill Cassidy, to the floor for a vote this week as Republicans raced to beat a Sept. 30 deadline. But the bill did not have enough GOP support to pass, with Republican Sens. Susan Collins of Maine, John McCain of Arizona, and Rand Paul of Kentucky all announcing their opposition.
“Where we go from here is tax reform,” McConnell said Tuesday after a GOP luncheon where they discussed the bill’s demise. But, McConnell said, “we haven’t given up on changing the American health care system.”
Graham, standing beside McConnell to brief reporters, said Republicans would return to the Graham-Cassidy bill after they finished tax reform, and he predicted it would eventually pass.
“With more hearings, with regular order, we’re going to get to 50 votes,” Graham said. “We’re going to fulfill our promise.”
Republicans hold a narrow 5248 majority in the Senate, so McConnell could lose only two votes and still pass the legislation, with Vice President Mike Pence breaking a tie. Democrats are united against the measure.
The three senators who promised to vote “no” on the GrahamCassidy proposal gave three different reasons for their opposition. Collins said the bill was flawed on multiple counts, saying, for example, that it would not protect Maine’s most vulnerable residents and would undermine protections for those with pre-existing conditions. McCain objected to the GOP-only process for drafting the bill and the limited debate. Paul said the legislation did not go far enough in repealing the Affordable Care Act.
The GOP’s failure is a huge blow for President Donald Trump, who had lobbied lawmakers to support the Graham-Cassidy bill and invested significant political capital in a repeal bill. But it’s an even bigger defeat for McConnell and his Senate GOP troops, who have spent seven years promising their conservative constituents they would repeal and replace the ACA.
Before McConnell’s announcement, Trump indicated the fight over health care will go on. “We’ll see what happens,” Trump told reporters, “It’s going along and at some point, there will be a repeal and replace.”
“This battle is over; the war is not,” said Sen. Steve Daines, a Montana Republican.
The Graham-Cassidy plan would have kept most of the taxes that fund the ACA in place but sent that revenue to the states in the form of block grants to craft their own insurance systems. The legislation called for ending the health care law’s Medicaid expansion provision and transforming the traditional Medicaid program into a per-capita grant program.