Republicans on Sunday expressed increasing pessimism about the prospects for the healthcare bill in the US Senate aimed at rolling back Obamacare as lawmakers prepared to return from a week-long recess.
US Senator John McCain said he thought the Republican bill would probably fail.
“My view is that it’s probably going to be dead,” McCain said on the CBS program Face the Nation, adding that Republicans, who narrowly control the Senate, would likely need to work with Democrats on a healthcare bill.
US President Donald Trump on Sunday took to Twitter to put pressure on Republicans to stay the course.
“For years, even as a ‘civilian,’ I listened as Republicans pushed the Repeal and Replace of ObamaCare. Now they finally have their chance!” he tweeted.
The Senate bill, which faces unified Democratic opposition, has been further imperiled during the recess, when Republican senators have had to return to their states and face constituents strongly opposed to the measure.
Senators returned to Washington yesterday.
The Senate bill keeps intact much of the 2010 Affordable Care Act, former US president Barack Obama’s signature legislation, popularly known as Obamacare, but strips away most of its funding.
It repeals most Obamacare taxes, overhauls the law’s tax credits and ends its Medicaid expansion.
It also goes beyond repealing Obamacare by cutting funding for the Medicaid program for poor and disabled people beginning in 2025.
At least 10 Republican senators have opposed the bill in its current form, but many more have criticized the legislation or said they are undecided.
Republican US Senator Bill Cassidy on Sunday said the bill was undergoing a “serious rewrite.”
“Clearly, the draft plan is dead,” he said on Fox News. “Is the serious rewrite plan dead? I don’t know. I’ve not seen the serious rewrite plan.”
Critics have derided the bill as a giveaway to wealthy Americans who would see some tax increases rolled back.
Opponents also said that the legislation would cause millions of poor and sick Americans to lose healthcare coverage.
The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO), which assesses the impact of legislation, estimated 22 million people would lose health insurance over the next decade under the Senate bill.
In a separate report, it found the proposal would cut government spending on Medicaid by 35 percent by 2036.
On Sunday, White House chief of staff Reince Priebus told Fox News that Trump expected Congress to pass a bill to repeal and replace Obamacare before lawmakers leave Washington for their recess next month.
A spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Senate leadership was continuing to work with Republican senators and the CBO on the legislation, but did not comment on McCain’s remarks or the bill’s future.
Republican US Senator Ted Cruz on Sunday said that failure to pass the bill was “not an option” and that the Senate effort must focus on lowering premiums.
He pointed to an amendment he offered that is being scored by the CBO.
Cruz’s amendment would allow insurers to offer plans that do not comply with Obamacare’s mandate that they charge sick and healthy people the same rates, and cover a set of essential health benefits as long as they also offer plans that comply with the regulations.
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