A months-long effort by US Senate Republicans to pass health legislation collapsed early yesterday after US Senator John McCain joined two of his colleagues to block a stripped-down bill to repeal the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, commonly known as Obamacare.
“I regret that our efforts were simply not enough this time,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said on the Senate floor after the vote.
The decision by McCain to vote no came after weeks of brinkmanship and after his dramatic return from cancer treatment to cast the 50th vote to start debate on the bill earlier this week.
Photo: AFP
The so-called “skinny” repeal bill was defeated 49-51, falling just short of the 50 votes needed to advance it. Republican senators Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski also voted against it.
It was not immediately clear what the next steps are to be for the Republicans. The repeal effort had appeared to collapse several times before, only to be revived.
Several Republicans pleaded for their colleagues not to give up, even as US President Donald Trump blasted the vote, saying at 2:25am on Twitter: “3 Republicans and 48 Democrats let the American people down. As I said from the beginning, let ObamaCare implode, then deal. Watch!”
US Democrats immediately called for a bipartisan debate on how to fix Obamacare.
“We are not celebrating. We’re relieved,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said after the vote.
In a dramatic vote in the early morning hours, Collins voted no first, then Murkowski, followed by McCain, who walked to the well of the Senate and gave a thumbs down, dooming the repeal bill to loud gasps, mostly from the Democratic side of the aisle.
Of the three, Collins had been opposed to every Republican proposal on the table. Murkowski had also been critical of them.
McCain was a bigger surprise. He has long called for repeal, but grew frustrated over the secretive process that Republican leaders employed to draft various measures.
“We must now return to the correct way of legislating and send the bill back to committee, hold hearings, receive input from both sides of aisle, heed the recommendations of the nation’s governors and produce a bill that finally delivers affordable healthcare for the American people,” McCain said in a statement after the vote. “We must do the hard work our citizens expect of us and deserve.”
McConnell released the long-awaited text of the bill late on Thursday, only a few hours before the pivotal vote.
The nonpartisan US Congressional Budget Office late on Thursday said that the bill would have resulted in an additional 15 million Americans without health insurance next year.
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