Senate Republicans voted to debate the new healthcare policy before decidedly rejecting it hours later.

Movies

Senate Refuses To Repeal And Replace Obamacare

Senate Republicans voted to debate the new healthcare policy before decidedly rejecting it hours later.

Published

July 27, 2017

Tuesday was a whirlwind of activity, with the Senate first voting to debate on the healthcare issue, only to “decisively” reject the proposal hours later. The proposal, drafted by the Republican party, was part of their ongoing struggle to “repeal-and-replace Obamacare.”

Unfortunately for Republicans, not everyone thinks this is a good plan, including some of their own party.

Senator John McCain returned from Arizona to cast his “critical vote for the Republicans.” With Republican GOP Senators Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski decidedly against the bill, tensions ran higher than normal during the voting.

According to CNN Politics, “The vote came as Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and President Donald Trump dared their fellow Republicans to block their seven-year campaign promise to repeal and replace Obamacare.”

Wednesday’s vote was excusively “repeal-only.” Democrats and many Republicans refuse to vote favorably without a replacement plan ready to take the place of Obamacare.

The First Vote

This first vote decided on the measure that “combined a previous Senate proposal.” This proposal is known as the Better Care Reconcilliation Act, and would be partnered with approximately $100 billion in extra money for people on Medicaid. Republicans want this money “to allow for bare-bones health insurance plans.”

The Better Reconcilliation Act was rejected by several members of the Reublican party, and the amendment was successfully removed by the Democratic party with 57 votes to 43 Republican votes.

Advertisement. Scroll to continue reading.

The Big Vote

No one knew how the chips would fall until Senators Rand Paul, Dean Heller, Rob Portman, and Shelley Moore Capito showed their respective hands. All four announced their support of the bill, pushing it through and allowing Republicans to continue their revamp of American healthcare.

“I’m very happy to announce that with zero of the Democrats’ votes, the motion to proceed on health care has moved past and now we move forward toward truly great health care for the American people. We look forward to that. This was a big step,” Trump said at a White House news conference.

But even though President Trump was pleased with the final result, the two opposing Republican senators still hold his ire.

“We had two Republicans that went against us, which is very sad, I think,” Trump said. “It’s very, very sad — for them. But I’m very, very happy with the result. I believe now we will, over the next week or two, come up with a plan that’s going to be really, really wonderful for the American people.”

This is a major step for the Republican party and President Trump, who made the repeal-and-replace proposal back on the campaign trail.

The Democratic party says the fight is far from over, however.

“Anyone who thinks this is over is sadly mistaken,” said Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-New York. “There are many, many Republicans who don’t like this bill, who don’t want to vote for it. They are under enormous pressure to vote for it. … Anyone who voted to move to proceed and certainly anyone who votes to send this bill to conference is virtually, certainly, voting to kick millions off health care, to make it much harder to get coverage if you have a pre-existing condition, to slash Medicaid and give a huge amount of tax cuts to the rich.”

Hopefully everyone involved will do what is best for the American people.