‘Fire’-crazed Prez hits AG over FBI guy
THE REPEAL is a repeat failure.
A bill to repeal Obamacare without a replacement died in a Senate vote Wednesday — giving Republicans their second health care loss in the 24 hours since they scraped by in a vote to keep the effort going.
The Senate voted the bill down, 55-45, with seven Republicans and all 47 Democrats rejecting it.
Republicans who voted one day prior to keep working on a new health care bill — including John McCain of Arizona, Dean Heller of Nevada and Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia — joined the opposition against the straight repeal bill.
That came after an amended version of a repeal-and-replace bill was shot down Tuesday night in a 57-43 vote, with nine Republicans opposing it.
The dual defeats show the long struggle Republicans still face after barely prevailing in a vote to trudge forward on health care legislation.
The Senate tied 50-50 Tuesday in a vote about whether to keep debating legislation for a new health care system. Vice President Pence cast a tiebreaking vote in favor of further debate, but that only began another battle over what the bills will be.
The Senate has been mulling over two beleaguered bills proposing alternatives to former President Barack Obama’s signature health care law.
One calls for a repeal and replacement of Obamacare, while the other mandates a repeal with an unspecified replacement to be determined sometime in the future.
Both bills have failed to win unanimous support from the Republican Party, which has campaigned for seven years on promises to kill Obamacare.
President Trump made replacing the policy a cornerstone of his campaign.
Congressional Budget Office estimates on all of the GOP bills considered so far have found that each would deprive more than 20 million Americans of health insurance over the next 10 years. The straight repeal would do the most damage, zapping coverage for 32 million Americans, the budget office said.
With neither option going anywhere, the Senate is now pondering a third choice: Drafting a so-called “skinny” repeal, which would cut some of Obamacare’s muchmaligned mandates and taxes but leave the law largely intact.
That idea is likely to hit roadblocks, too, since some Republicans have bickered about earlier bills not going far enough to dismantle Obamacare.
Trump has repeatedly chided his fellow Republicans to pass a bill before the Senate’s August recess — which starts in less than a week.
Some Senate Republicans appeared distraught over the hectic schedule since the debates began.
“We’ve got to have a more organized process,” Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Minn.) said. “We just don’t have the courage and really the intestinal fortitude to suck it up and . . . do this right.”
Late Wednesday, an amendment committing to help states expand Medicaid for the poor garnered only GOP 10 votes.
Democrats refused to vote for any amendment to a bill they have not read, and the vote primarily highlighted deep divisions within the
Republican Party. AS SENATORS in Washington debated how to repeal major provisions of Obamacare, New York elected officials gathered at City Hall on Wednesday morning to slam the Republican bill and demand more transparency. “We’ve got to kill the bill before the bill kills us,” Public Advocate Letitia James said at the City Hall rally, standing in front of over 50 members of health workers’ unions. State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman reiterated his past promise to go to court to stop it if necessary. He noted that past versions of the bill that strip funding from Planned Parenthood would breach women’s constitutional rights. Other Democratic elected officials at the rally included Councilman Corey Johnson of Manhattan, who was arrested while protesting at Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s office in Washington last week. “I am HIV-positive . . . I take lifesaving medicine every day because of my HIV status,” Johnson said. “This bill is sick. This bill is deranged. This bill is evil.” The Senate is expected to reach a final vote on the repeal bill in the coming days. PRESIDENT TRUMP attacked his attorney general, Jeff Sessions, again on Wednesday, this time for not canning acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe.
“Why didn’t A.G. Sessions replace Acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe, a Comey friend who was in charge of Clinton investigation but got ....... big dollars ($700,000) for his wife’s political run from Hillary Clinton and her representatives. Drain the Swamp!” Trump wrote in a pair of early morning tweets.
Trump has been trolling Sessions — one of his earliest campaign backers — for the past week, calling him “weak” and “beleaguered.”
Sessions’ chief of staff has told the White House he has no plans to resign, ABC News reported.
The White House had previously said Trump had full confidence in McCabe, a 20-year veteran of the FBI who took over the department after James Comey’s firing.
Trump interviewed him for Comey’s job before naming his current nominee, Chris Wray.
Trump’s tweet referred to Jill McCabe’s 2015 run for state Senate in Virginia. Her campaign received roughly $675,288 from the state’s party and a political action committee tied to Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, a longtime Clinton ally. The Clinton campaign hasn’t been linked to those donations.