The Republican Fight to Repeal Obamacare Is ‘Dead as a Doornail.’ For Now

Vice President Mike Pence emerged from a lunch with Senate Republicans stone-faced, dodging questions as he beelined for the exit. His silence made it clear the latest Senate attempt to repeal the Affordable Care Act was dead, thus thwarting yet again a core Republican promise. One of the bill’s sponsors then came forward to confirm it. “We don’t have the votes,” said Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, who along with Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina drafted the latest attempt at scrapping the seven-year-old law. “Am I disappointed? Absolutely.” Senate leaders said the issue wasn’t the content of the Graham-Cassidy bill, which would have dismantled Medicaid expansion and other Obamacare provisions and hand the funds from those programs over to states via block grants. Graham and Cassidy were insistent that they will eventually get the votes needed to pass the legislation. Leaders said the process through which they were trying to pick the bill through, however, had given a handful of senators pause, including Arizona Sen. John McCain. “There are 50 votes for the substance,” said Graham. “There are not 50 votes for the process.” Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said that for now, the health care debate is over and the Senate now will turn its attention to another major agenda item: an ambitious rewrite of the tax code, along with tax cuts. “We haven’t given up on changing the American healthcare sys...
Source: TIME.com: Top Science and Health Stories - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Uncategorized Affordable Care Act Congress Health Care Obamacare Senate Source Type: news