Just yesterday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell announced that the Senate Healthcare Bill (also known as BCRA or Trumpcare) had been defeated after Senators Mike Lee (R - UT) and Jerry Moran (R - KS) announced they would vote against the revised bill. Directly after admitting the bill had been defeated, McConnell stated the Senate would vote on a full Repeal of Obamacare without a replacement, although the repeal wouldn't go into effect for another two years. Less than twenty-four hours later, news spread from the hill that the new GOP plan of full repeal already lacked the votes necessary to pass in the Senate.
Full repeal of Obamacare dies
Since McConnell announced his plans of pushing for an Obamacare repeal without a replacement just yesterday, many politicians and members of the media quickly expressed skepticism of whether this was actually achievable. Back in January, "repeal and delay" was the GOP's original plan in terms of how to deal with Obamacare, yet, after a significant amount of backlash from both high-profile conservatives and constituents back home, Republicans chose to work toward a plan to "repeal and replace" Obamacare instead.
In an article published by VOX media early this morning, they called McConnell's "repeal and delay" plan an incredibly "risky strategy" given that the legislation would cause significant instability in insurance markets.
The VOX article added that while the "repeal and delay" initiative was still fresh, they were also skeptical of full repeal passing provided it would be difficult to sell constituents that a better plan can be crafted in two years when they weren't able to craft a consensus bill after six months. Mere hours after the VOX article was published, Senators Shelly Moore Capito (R - WV), Susan Collins (R - ME) and Lisa Murkowski (R - AK) all came out, stating that they would vote against the Senate initiative to "repeal and delay," effectively killing the effort altogether.
Statements by Senators who killed repeal
After the three GOP senators collectively announced they would oppose efforts to repeal Obamacare without a replacement, each Senator delivered an individual statement. In a statement released by Senator Capito's office, she stated that her position"... [was] driven by [a repeal's] impact on West Virginians." Later, in a tweet, she added that she would only vote to repeal, "...If I am confident there is a replacement plan that addresses my concerns."
MORE: I will only vote to proceed to repeal legislation if I am confident there is a replacement plan that addresses my concerns.
— Shelley Moore Capito (@SenCapito) July 18, 2017
Senator Murkowski told reporters late Tuesday that, "I think what has to happen is the Republicans have to admit that some of the things in the ACA, we actually liked, and the Democrats have to admit that some of the things they voted for in the ACA are broken and need to be fixed." In a similar vein to Senator Murkowski, Senator Collins told reporters that she thought the best course of action would be to works toward a bipartisan solution to healthcare with the help of the Democrats.
