Republican Healthcare Bill to Leave 16Mln More Americans Uninsured

President Donald Trump took to Twitter early Friday morning to slam “3 Republicans and 48 Democrats” for failing to pass a stripped-down version of a bill to repeal the Affordable Care Act.

Ryan’s reassurances, offered in a call to five Republican senators, came as Republican leaders urged their party to approve the pared-down bill so they can proceed to a House-Senate negotiation and keep Republicans’ seven-year Obamacare repeal effort alive. This certainly won’t be easy.

John Neely Kennedy said, “Everyone needs to saddle up and put it all on the table and say this is my position”. John McCain was eager to pivot to the annual defense spending bill in the early hours of the morning right after he had killed the Senate’s Obamacare repeal effort: Three congressional sources told CNN the Arizona Republican is planning to return to Arizona to start cancer treatment Monday.

One possibility taking shape in talks among senators was a “skinny repeal” that would abolish just a few of the key elements of Obama’s law including mandates that everyone purchase insurance and taxes that all GOP senators can agree to oppose.

The “skinny” repeal amendment was the Republicans’ last best hope to get something passed, after “repeal-and-replace” and “straight-repeal” amendments failed. “In 2015, we could have waited two years for relief, but we cannot now, when Tennessee insurance commissioner Julie McPeak says the state’s individual insurance market is ‘very near collapse, ‘” Alexander explained in a statement.

“If moving forward requires a conference committee, that is something the House is willing to do”, Ryan (R-Wis.) said in a statement.

“The so-called skinny bill represents an opportunity”, Republican Senator Lamar Alexander said in a Capitol hallway.

Republicans needed a simple majority, 51 votes, rather than a supermajority to pass it because they were using the budget reconciliation process.

That final attempt was repeal on life support. McCain motioned to the clerk with a thumbs-down, prompting gasps and short-lived applause from Democrats before minority leader Chuck Schumer told them to cut it out.

He said “no”, with a thumbs down that shocked many in the room. Many Republican senators do not want this latest scheme, known as “skinny repeal”, to become law. He already was putting the Senate on track Friday to consider Congress’s annual defense policy bill next. “I find it hard to believe that we can sit here and vote on a bill that is going to hurt millions and millions of people in our country”.