![Republican Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell speaking in Kentucky, 2010 / [Image by Gage Skidmore via Flickr / CC BY-SA 2.0]](https://staticr1.blastingcdn.com/media/photogallery/2017/6/29/660x290/b_502x220x82/republican-senate-majority-leader-mitch-mcconnell-speaking-in-kentucky-2010-image-by-gage-skidmore-via-flickr-cc-by-sa-20_1419631.jpg "Republican Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell speaking in Kentucky, 2010 / [Image by Gage Skidmore via Flickr / CC BY-SA 2.0]")
On Friday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said that despite the problems his party faced in passing their Better Care Reconciliation Act (BCRA), they would continue to their effort to replace the Affordable Care Act (ACA) aka Obamacare.
On May 4, House Republicans passed their Health Care Bill called the American Health Care Act (AHCA). The Senate initially rejected the House version and said they would work on their own. Until June 29, the Senate's version of the bill, BCRA, was put together in secret with other senators under McConnell's leadership.
The Kentucky senator would finally reveal the bill over a week before their July 4 recess where he hoped they could have a vote on the floor. A revolt from up to nine Republican senators would prevent the vote from taking place.
McConnell admits to legislative challenges
McConnell made his statement during the Hardin County GOP's Lincoln Day Dinner where he compared the difficulties of legislating such a bill to a Rubix cube. He made the reference while trying to get 50 senators to vote for the bill which is less than the usual 60 required having changed the voting rules. Lowering the amount is a way to get the bill passed by a simple majority. This would indicate that he knew the difficulties in trying to pass their health care bill, something they could have in place of Obamacare instead of just a simple repeal.
McConnell showed his determination to repeal the ACA by saying that keeping it was not an option. Republicans have said that Obamacare is a "disaster" as premiums continue to escalate and more insurance providers remove themselves from the marketplace. Republicans refused to work with Democrats to fix the issues Americans are facing with the ACA.
They claimed Democrats created and passed their bill without Republicans, something that has already been shown to be false. Marist, NPR, and PBS polls came out this week showing that 65 percent of Americans disapproved of how Republicans are handling health care.
Running out of options?
Republicans were forced to answer for CBO scores that showed millions of Americans would lose health coverage from the new bill after it left the House.
Even President Trump, who had celebrated its passage, said that their bill was "mean."
It has been reported that Trump had little to no involvement in legislation of the new BCRA at the request of Senate Republicans. Even recent CBO scores have shown that millions of Americans will continue to lose coverage over the years as a result of the new bill the Senate is trying to pass. Republicans have pushed back against the scores saying that they were not accurate. For instance, Sen. Thune of South Dakota took issue with scores broken down for his state.
As a matter of foresight on how different sides want the legislation of the bill to go, President Trump said before the July recess that if Congress were unable to pass the BCRA, they should just repeal Obamacare, leave millions of Americans without coverage, and put a new health care replacement together later.
McConnell has reportedly disagreed with this.
Other more moderate Republicans have hinted as working with Democrats who do not support the GOP's repeal efforts. Democrats have said that they would be willing to work with Republicans but only under the condition that a full repeal would be off the table.
