McConnell's New Obamacare Repeal Lacks GOP Votes to Pass - Bloomberg
Description: Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s new proposal to simply repeal Obamacare appears to be dead less than 24 hours after he dropped his replacement plan for lack of support among fellow Republicans.

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# McConnell's New Obamacare Repeal Lacks GOP Votes to Pass

- Three Republicans oppose repeal without replacement plan
- Collins says repeal would cause insurance market turmoil

McConnell's New Proposal to Repeal Obamacare Fails

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s new proposal to simply repeal Obamacare appears to be dead less than 24 hours after he dropped his replacement plan for lack of support among fellow Republicans.

GOP Senators Susan Collins, Shelley Moore Capito and Lisa Murkowski said Tuesday they’ll oppose a repeal of the Affordable Care Act. McConnell said late Monday the Senate would vote on a repeal with a two-year delay to give Congress time to agree on a replacement, but he could afford to lose no more than two Republican votes to advance the measure.

"We’ll let Obamacare fail" and then Democrats may want to agree on a replacement, President Donald Trump told reporters at the White House. "I’m not going to own it."

"We’ll let Obamacare fail," Trump tells reporters at White House.

Source: Bloomberg

Repealing the law now and then hoping for a replacement "would create great anxiety for individuals who rely on the ACA," Collins of Maine told reporters in Washington. "I believe it would cause the insurance markets to go into turmoil." She said she would oppose bringing a repeal bill up for debate.

Capito of West Virginia said she would refuse to take up a repeal plan without an adequate replacement. "I did not come to Washington to hurt people," she said in a statement.

### ‘Enough Chaos’

Murkowski of Alaska also said she would refuse to take up a repeal-alone measure.

"There’s enough chaos and uncertainty already and this would just contribute to it," Murkowski told reporters. She said she wants a fix that would stabilize individual insurance markets and leave Medicaid unchanged, and that lawmakers should work on a bipartisan measure in committee.

Lisa Murkowski

Photographer: Zach Gibson/Bloomberg

On Monday, opposition from four Republicans sank McConnell’s repeal and replacement legislation, which the majority leader drafted mostly in secret. The inability to deliver on seven years of GOP promises to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act would be the biggest failure yet for Trump and Republicans since they won control of Congress and the White House.

Republicans are expected to discuss how to pick up the pieces at their regular policy lunch Tuesday. Several senators have made clear that they want GOP leaders to pursue an alternative that would require working with Democrats.

Senate Finance Chairman Orrin Hatch said it may be time to put aside an Obamacare repeal and, if McConnell decides to do so, Congress should consider short-term measures to stabilize insurance markets. Hatch said it may be difficult to pay for reinsurance funds and cost reduction subsidies to stabilize markets.

### ‘Best Next Step’

A bipartisan group of 11 governors, led by Ohio Republican John Kasich, said in a statement that the Senate should reject an immediate repeal, which they said could leave millions of Americans without coverage.

"The best next step is for both parties to come together and do what we can all agree on: fix our unstable insurance markets," said the governors, who also said they should be allowed to provide input.

A Kaiser Family Foundation poll conducted June 14-19 showed that 59 percent of those surveyed would hold Republicans, now in control of the government, responsible for any future problems with Obamacare, while 30 percent said they would blame Democrats who enacted the law.

Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky said that nearly every Republican voted for the same repeal-only bill in 2015, so if they oppose it now, "they’ve got some explaining to do." Capito and Murkowski voted for the repeal then, while Collins voted against it.

When Congress passed that repeal bill, they did so knowing it would be vetoed by President Barack Obama. This year, now that it could become law, such a proposal has drawn little support among Republican senators, with the exception of those in its most conservative wing.

### ‘We All Care Deeply’

GOP Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin said he didn’t see the Republicans who doomed the McConnell plan as disloyal.

"Absolutely not. We all care deeply," Johnson said. "Honestly, I think every member of Congress cares quite deeply about the mess we’re in right now with the health care system."

Trump said on Twitter Monday night that "We were let down by all of the Democrats and a few Republicans." The president also tweeted that the Senate, controlled by Republicans 52-48, should eliminate the 60-vote threshold for advancing bills that don’t use a special fast-track procedure.

House Speaker Paul Ryan of Wisconsin told reporters he would like to see "the Senate move on something." The House passed its own version of a replacement bill in May.

"I’m worried that Obamacare will continue to stand and the law will continue to collapse and hurt people in the process," said Ryan of Wisconsin.

McConnell had faced an increasingly narrow path on the health bill, with no apparent way to win over conservative and moderate holdouts seeking to pull the measure in opposite directions. McConnell’s plan already was teetering on the brink after Senator John McCain’s unexpected surgery late Friday left him one short of the votes needed to start debate this week.

The Senate Republican leadership team has expressed a desire to begin moving on to other matters, including an overhaul of the tax code, a boost in the nation’s debt ceiling and next year’s spending bills.

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