Senate Rejects Slimmed-Down Obamacare Repeal as McCain Votes No
Representative Mark Walker, Republican of North Carolina
and the chairman of the conservative Republican Study Committee, said he favored a conference, calling the bill “ugly to the bone.”
And Representative Mark Meadows, Republican of North Carolina and the chairman of the hard-line Freedom Caucus, said
that for many conservatives, it would be a “nonstarter” to send President Trump a bill that has “gotten so skinny that it doesn’t resemble a repeal.”
But senators had at least some reason to be nervous.
“The reality, however, is that repealing and replacing Obamacare still ultimately requires the Senate to produce 51 votes for an actual plan.”
But Mr. Ryan left open the possibility that if a compromise measure had failed in
the Senate, the House could still pass the stripped-down Senate health bill.
Representative Chris Collins, Republican of New York and a key ally of Mr. Trump, said the stripped-down bill would be “better than nothing” if it became apparent
that the Senate did not have the votes for a more ambitious bill.
“I’m not going to vote for a bill that is terrible policy
and horrible politics just because we have to get something done,” Mr. Graham said at a news conference, calling the stripped-down bill a “disaster” and a “fraud” as a replacement for the health law.
WASHINGTON — The Senate in the early hours of Friday morning rejected a new, scaled-down Republican plan to repeal parts of the Affordable Care Act, derailing the Republicans’ seven-year campaign to dismantle President Barack Obama’s signature health care law
and dealing a huge political setback to President Trump.
