Washington – Facing assured defeat, Republican leaders decided Tuesday not to even hold a vote on the GOP’s latest attempt to repeal the Obama health care law, surrendering on their last-gasp effort to deliver on the party’s banner campaign promise.
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Leaving a lunch of Republican senators who’d gathered to discuss their next steps on the issue, Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., said Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and other leaders decided that “the votes are not there, not to have the vote.” Another lawmaker leaving the gathering, Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., shook his head and said, “No,” when asked if a roll call would occur.
The decision marked the latest defeat on the issue for President Donald Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. In July, the Republican-controlled Senate rejected three similar GOP measures, a failure that infuriated conservatives and prompted Trump to spend much of his summer tweeting criticism at McConnell for falling short.
One of the measure’s sponsors, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said the GOP fight to erase President Barack Obama’s 2010 health care overhaul would continue.
“We’re going to get there,” he said. “We’re going to fulfill our promise.”
Rejection became all but inevitable on Monday after Maine GOP Sen. Susan Collins announced she opposed the legislation. She joined Republican Sens. John McCain of Arizona, Rand Paul of Kentucky and Texas’ Ted Cruz who’d already said they opposed the measure. Cruz aides said he was seeking changes that would let him vote yes.
Because of their narrow majority and unified Democratic opposition, Republicans can lose just two GOP votes and still push the legislation through the Senate. A vote or a decision by McConnell, R-Ky., to forego a roll call was needed this week because procedural protections against a bill-killing filibuster by Democrats expire Sunday.
In choosing whether to hold the roll call, McConnell had to pick between some Republicans arguing that lawmakers can’t be seen as abandoning a pledge that Trump and countless GOP have run on, and others challenging the value of shining a fresh spotlight on their inability to pass the bill.
The abandoned bill would transform much of “Obamacare’s” spending into grants that states could spend on health programs with few constraints.
Looser
the GOP hoisted on its own ideological petard…oh bliss; 2018 here we come!
If Trump really cared about health care he would see that the repub ands demo get together and pass legislation
Big huge loss for 160 million Americans not on subsidy or government insurance whose premuims skyrocketed thanks to the ACA. However, this is life once the goodies are dished out you can’t take it back. So the middle class loose again. But as long as those on medicaid get all freebies from dental to eye care to zero copays all while they can choose to live unhealthy lifestyles its all good. They can fress what they want and smoke how they want yet they are “entitiled” to free health care. But oh its not costing the middle class a penny.
So very sad.
Single payer is not the answer.
Doctors , health care facilities, and innovates including drug companies need to be rewarded with top dollars for their work or they won’t choose to become doctors.
And no doctors won’t become dr’s just because they believe in the mission. You may find a few who choose for a few years to work at the mayo clinc but without top pay it ain’t happening. Anyone who believes that its about the misson is very naive. Plus the costs to become a dr and run an office is enormous already.
medicaid already killed pediatricians and internal medicine practices turning it into institutions where you never get the dr unless you pay out of pocket. If you want to make that even worse then bring on single payer.
Here goes uneducated Archy. “Second to none” “free goodies” and the best are the rhetorical questions that he answers for himself “so you ask why not bla bla.. 2 pointers.. bla bla..”
Another grand defeat for Toxic Trumpf and the alt-right GOP. And tonite psycho Moore will get elected in Alabama primary over Dotard Donnie’s candidate for Senate. North Korea anyone? Nah, lets tweet about the NFL. YUTZ.
This oval office occupant should undergo a Rohrschach test to determine his mental fitness
Good let this be Obama’s failed legacy.
Failed Obamacare and the creation of BLM is how he will be remembered
In order to reorganize health insurance you need that doctors do not perform unnecessary procedures, reduce the salary of hospital executives and reign in the obscene profits of drug companies and tell doctors to follow ethical medicine