27M uninsured under Senate health care bill

That’s about $100 billion more than the Senate’s original repeal and replace bill.

And almost every Republican has already voted for it. President Obama vetoed the legislation. Congressional Republicans have run on that same promise for seven years. For GOP leaders, it means facing less fury from constituents suddenly without access to medical care they need. Their ranks would jump to 27 million two years later when the bill would end two cornerstones of the ACA: subsidies that help the vast majority of consumers buying health plans through its marketplaces to pay for monthly premiums, and the expansion of Medicaid to people slightly above the poverty line.

Yet regardless of how the Senate decides to move forward with repealing the ACA, any plan that would repeal major pieces of the healthcare law without an immediate replacement appears doomed to fail.

Heller is also the only Senate Republican incumbent running in a state where Hillary Clinton defeated Trump at the polls last fall.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., says he wants to hold a vote on the new repeal-only legislation, or replacement legislation if it can be hashed out, next week.

“I’m sitting in that office, I have a pen in hand”. “Congress needs to step up”. Plus, the mandate needs to be enforced, he said. But after GOP senators met with President Donald Trump Wednesday afternoon and then among themselves that evening, the measure is showing renewed signs of life, although its prospects for passage remain dubious. “We can repeal it, but the best is repeal and replace”, Trump said. Dean Heller (R-NV), who was sitting to his right. “So I wouldn’t put that on him, I would put that on the fact that we have four or five, six people who have different reasons are not prepared to support other proposals that are before us, and it’s disappointing”.

McConnell is focused first on getting the votes he needs to clear a critical, procedural hurdle to begin debating any health care legislation. And even if they do somehow come up with a bill that can attract 50 votes, it will nearly certainly include features that have made every GOP plan this year increasingly unpopular. Repeal bill, it said would also reduce the federal deficit by $473bn (£363bn).

“I did not come to Washington to hurt people”, Ms Capito said in a statement.

The only thing that seems certain – for now – is that the Senate will vote one way or another next week.

That effort was halted Tuesday after three Republicans refused to support a motion to proceed, but McConnell has promised to bring it up for a vote next week.