McConnell postpones vote on Senate health care bill
WASHINGTON – Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said the upper chamber will not vote on the Obamacare repeal and replacement bill before Congress’ one-week Fourth of July recess.
“We will not be on the bill this week but we’re still working toward getting at least fifty people in a comfortable place,” McConnell said at a news conference on Tuesday accompanied by fellow GOP Senators John Thune (S.D.) and John Barasso (W.Y.).
McConnell made the announcement following the weekly Senate GOP policy luncheon, which, as usual, Vice President Mike Pence attended. However, this week White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer, White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus and Republican National Committee Chair Ronna Romney McDaniel also were reportedly present.
McConnell had hoped to vote on the legislation by the end of the week but that prospect seemed to diminish following Monday’s release of a Congressional Budget Office (CBO) report that estimated the bill would increase the number of uninsured Americans by 22 million within the next decade.
Six Republican senators have said they will not support the legislation unless significant changes are made. The upper chamber’s 46 Democrats and two independent members also oppose the bill.
McConnell and fellow Senate Republicans are going to the White House in the evening to discuss potential changes in the legislation with President Donald Trump.
Earlier Tuesday Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y), along with several fellow Senate Democrats, protested the legislation on the U.S. Capitol steps. They held up pictures and told stories of individuals whose lives might be put at risk if the large Medicaid cuts proposed in the bill were put into effect.
Schumer spoke to reporters following McConnell’s announcement that the vote would be delayed.
“Republicans cannot excise the rotten core at the center of their healthcare bill. No matter what tweaks they may add in the next week and a half, no matter how the bill changes around the edges—it is fundamentally flawed at the center,” he alleged.
This article is republished with permission from Talk Media News
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