Unable to strike a deal within his own caucus on a replacement for the Affordable Care Act (ACA), Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is trying to go back to the basics: legislation that would just repeal the law.
McConnell said on the floor Tuesday that in the coming days, the Senate would begin consideration of the very same Obamacare repeal measure that passed the upper chamber in 2015.
The legislation includes a two-year delay before the ACA is fully repealed, conceivably giving time to lawmakers to draft alternative health reforms.
“A majority of the Senate voted to pass the same repeal legislation in 2015,” McConnell said, selling the new plan forward. “President Obama vetoed it back then. President Trump will sign it now.”
McConnell’s new tack was forced by a revolt within his own caucus against the ACA replacement bill, a proposal passed by the House and then modified several times in backroom negotiations among Senators.
On Monday, Sens. Jerry Moran (R-Kansas) and Mike Lee (R-Utah) delivered the deathblow to repeal and replace, announcing they would oppose the current legislation under consideration. With Democrats uniformly opposed to the measure, McConnell could only afford two defections, and Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Rand Paul (R-Ky.) had already stated their opposition.
“I regret that the effort to repeal and immediately replace the failures of Obamacare will not be successful,” McConnell said Tuesday.
The Majority Leader is making the calculation that Senators who previously supported repeal only in 2015, knowing it would never be signed into law under President Obama, would make the same vote now with a Republican in the White House.
The only Senator still in the upper chamber who opposed the 2015 repeal legislation is Collins.
McConnell’s assumptions, however, are already falling apart. Sens. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) and Shelley Moore Capito (R-W. Va.) said on Tuesday they would oppose moving ahead with the repeal-only bill, effectively scrapping McConnell’s new plan before it even had a chance to materialize.
President Trump reacted to the events on Capitol Hill, telling reporters he was “very disappointed.”
“For so many years, I’ve been hearing repeal and replace,” Trump said. “When we finally get a chance to repeal and replace, they don’t take advantage of it.”
The President acknowledged that the GOP will likely have to move the health care fight to after the midterms. “We’re going to have to go out and get more Republicans elected in 2018,” he said.
Trump then turned to other legislative priorities in the meantime.
“It will go on, and we’re going to win on taxes and infrastructure,” he said.
