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Republicans' healthcare bill dissolves as GOP senators announce opposition.

In the early hours of the morning two republican senators, Mike Lee of Utah and Jerry Moran of Kansas, announced that together they would refuse to vote in favour of the proposed bill to replace the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare. Combined with two other GOP senators who had already announced they would not vote for the bill, it no longer has enough support to pass a vote in the senate and the vote has now been pulled. Senate leader Mitch McConnell is now calling for a vote to repeal the ACA with no replacement healthcare bill in place, with a two year delay before repeal comes into effect to draft a new healthcare plan to introduce in its place- something they were unable to do this time despite having seven years to prepare.

(Left leaning and right leaning sources, for the sake of avoiding accusations of bias)

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/17/us/politics/health-care-overhaul-collapses-as-two-republican-senators-defect.html?action=Click&contentCollection=BreakingNews&contentID=65583378&pgtype=article&referer=

http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2017/07/17/senate-bill-dies-president-trump-mitch-mcconnell-call-clean-repeal-obamacare-now-replacement-later/

UPDATE: Three republican senators have now announced that they will not vote for repeal with no replacement plan in place, effectively killing the GOP's plans to outright repeal Obamacare.

https://twitter.com/lisamurkowski/status/887359907657392131

https://twitter.com/SenatorCollins/status/887342935179759616

https://twitter.com/SenCapito/status/887329090147147776

(edited 6 years ago)

Reply 1

Dez

Hmm so setting an arbitrary 2-year deadline for the withdrawal from a deal with absolutely no plan in place for what comes after. This sounds awfully familiar for some reason…

Reply 2

username612415

Following McConnel's announcement of a vote to repeal without a replacement, three GOP senators have immediately announced that they will not vote for repeal without an alternative plan in place. This means the bill does not have the support necessary to pass, effectively killing Trump's promise to repeal Obamacare until an entirely new healthcare bill is drafted.

Original post by Dez

Hmm so setting an arbitrary 2-year deadline for the withdrawal from a deal with absolutely no plan in place for what comes after. This sounds awfully familiar for some reason…

Trump and Garage were right when they described his election as the United States' brexit: a poorly thought out and misrepresented idea unable to deliver on its promises and generally a bad idea for everyone.

Reply 3

username2053059

They're now estimating that 32m people will lose their healthcare if this goes through... wow.

Reply 4

SMEGGGY

The fall of Trumper is nigh

Posted from TSR Mobile

Reply 5

username2228735

Good to see 'true' conservatives opposing this.

Reply 6

username612415

Well it's been an interesting few days.

Following the failure to pass their original bill and then to repeal the ACA with no replacement in place, the GOP senate made a last-ditch attempt to do... something. They brought a new hastily written bill to the floor which "only" repealed certain key areas of the ACA, and rather than pushing a vote through for the bill itself they voted to let the bill be debated on the floor (allowing senators from any party to propose additional amendments) before being voted on. A reasonable way to go on face value, until you consider the so-called "skinny repeal" would have eliminated chunks of ACA large enough to effectively dismantle it, and the fact that one republican senator filibustered for over two hours of the debate, preventing amendments being made and leaving the bill largely in the same state as it was originally presented.

At the end of the session it was time to vote, and the bill failed to pass with a 51-49 vote against (a 50-50 deadlock would have resulted in the bill passing, as Vice President Pence would have cast the deciding vote). Three republican senators opposed the bill- Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski, who have been prolific in opposing their party's attempts on healthcare reform since the original bill was first revealed, and most notably of all John McCain, the one-time presidential candidate who has repeatedly come under fire for voting in favour of the various healthcare bills proposed despite criticising them publicly. Trump, who has derided McCain on many previous occasions, even praised the senator as an "American hero" for leaving the hospital where he is being treated for brain cancer to come and vote.

Following this most recent failure, it is very likely that this marks the end of the GOP's attempts at healthcare reform at this juncture. "Skinny repeal" was seen as the absolute bare minimum they could realistically achieve with enough consensus to successfully vote through, but with McCain making good on his word to oppose efforts to repeal with no other plan in place, there's no common ground left for the GOP to work from and actually implement any meaningful change.

Reply 7

SMEGGGY

When will Trumper go. He's insane

Posted from TSR Mobile

Reply 8

username612415

Original post by SMEGGGY

When will Trumper go. He's insane

Posted from TSR Mobile

Presumably 2020, odds of him getting impeached by a republican majority government are slim to none unless someone out there has footage of him literally fellating Putin (and even then it would be the gay stuff they don't like), but if the first six months are a decent indicator of his trajectory then there's no chance of him being reelected, especially if major defeats on high-level issues like this one keep piling up. The GOP will get over their #winning attitude when they realise all he's good for is signing executive orders and not actually effective enough to bring in the legislation the party really craves.

In the meantime the best thing we can hope for is more republican infighting for the next couple of years followed by a strong enough performance from the democrats in the 2018 midterms to put Trump in charge of a minority government.

Reply 9

username2228735

Both parties are equally as bad as each other. To hope the Democrats are going to solve anything is just as bad as hoping Trump will.

Reply 10

username612415

Original post by Aceadria

Both parties are equally as bad as each other. To hope the Democrats are going to solve anything is just as bad as hoping Trump will.

I can understand anti-government sentiment but the idea that both are as bad as each other is just painfully naive. I'm not saying the democrats are shining knights of democracy who can solve everything, but the republican party has devolved into a loose group of conservative factions ranging from social moderates to Tea Party-grade evangelicals who barely have a coherent vision beyond "f*ck obama". At the start of this healthcare debacle the republican leadership had to pull their initial bill, a bill they've had seven years to prepare and refine, before a vote could even be taken because it was simultaneously opposed by members feeling the bill went too far and an entire other group who didn't think the changes were far-reaching enough. There's virtually no issue that the democrat leadership is even remotely as divided on.

Besides, even if the democrats were equally ineffective at enacting policy, I'd rather the attempts at passing legislation did not comprise of trying to throw tens of millions off their healthcare, propping up the fossil fuel industry, granting tax breaks to the richest few at the expense of the working class, or further over-inflating military spending.