It’s high time the Republicans decided about the repealing of Obamacare
Trump pressures Senate GOP to vote on health care bill
In no uncertain terms, the president warned GOP senators that there will be consequences if they fail to advance legislation to repeal and replace Obamacare when Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell holds a procedural vote Tuesday.
“Tomorrow the Senate will vote on whether to allow this urgently needed bill to come to debate,” Trump said in remarks, after meeting with families who have suffered under the 2010 healthcare law.
Senate GOP leaders are planning to hold a vote Tuesday to begin debate on the House-passed American Health Care Act, after legislation crafted in the upper chamber failed to attract enough support.
The vote will force Republicans to reveal “whether they… side with Obamacare’s architects or its victims,” Trump said.
”So far, Senate Republicans have not done their job in ending the Obamacare nightmare,” the president publicly vented. “They now have a chance, however, to hopefully, hopefully fix what has been so badly broken.”
The Senate’s third-highest ranking Republican, John Cornyn of Texas, promised Republicans on Monday that they are “going to get a chance to vote on everything,” whether it’s the partial repeal of Obamacare that passed Congress in 2015 or an amendment introduced by Sens. Lindsey Graham (S.C.) and Bill Cassidy (La.) that would reallocate federal spending on healthcare to state and local governments.
But a late-night vote marathon will only occur if GOP leaders wrangle the votes needed to clear theprocedural hurdle and open debate on the healthcare measure.
Senate GOP staffers told The Post that zero progress was made over the weekend to court two Republicans – Sens. Rand Paul (Ky.) and Susan Collins (Maine) – who oppose the current effort to repeal Obamacare and have vowed to vote against a motion to proceed.
“They’re dumping billions of dollars into pet projects for individual senators,” Paul told CNN on Sunday, claiming McConnell and others have engaged in a “pork fest” to try and court skeptical Republicans.
Despite knowing its chances of failing are high, some GOP staffers supported the decision announced Monday to move forward with a procedural vote. They claim the widespread disappointment of a failed vote could be enough to get the caucus to reach a deal after weeks of botched negotiations.
“The reality of failure, and the blowback senators are likely to get from the base, may serve to help us in the end,” an aide involved in healthcare talks told CNN.
Republicans have given themselves until the third week of August to tackle unfinished business in the Senate, including healthcare, before departing Washington for their annual summer recess.
