![Senate side of U.S. Capitol building, Washinton, D.C. / [Image by Phil Roeder via Flickr, CC BY 2.0]](https://staticr1.blastingcdn.com/media/photogallery/2017/7/3/660x290/b_502x220x82/senate-side-of-us-capitol-building-washinton-dc-image-by-phil-roeder-via-flickr-cc-by-20_1421205.jpg "Senate side of U.S. Capitol building, Washinton, D.C. / [Image by Phil Roeder via Flickr, CC BY 2.0]")
Much like President Trump's incendiary tweets that never seem to come to an end, the president has continued to push the controversial agenda regarding a full repeal of Obamacare, otherwise known as the Affordable Care Act (ACA), rather than have a bill passed to replace it. His demand is to repeal first then replace it with the Senate bill later. In fact, this demand is similar to the energy President Trump used to pass the House Republican's version of health care, the American Health Care Act (AHCA). It was reported at the time that President Trump wanted House Republicans to pass the bill even if the bill was incoherent.
President Trump keeps pushing for repeal
The Senate rewrote the House bill they received and renamed it the Better Care Reconciliation Act (BCRA) which didn't get the votes the Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell had hoped for when they were looking to pass it before the July 4 recess. Marc Short, Trump's legislative director said on Sunday that President Trump had been talking into the weekend with Senate Republicans who were still undecided about voting for the bill. It was believed that when Trump was involved with pushing the AHCA, he wanted House Republicans to override the lengthy process of legislation that he believed was too loaded with details.
He wanted a bill that passed whether it made sense or not, even without a Congressional Budget Office (CBO) score just so the Republican Party could have a "win." Nonetheless, Mitch McConnell promised that his Senators would continue working to pass their BCRA bill when they returned from the one-week recess.
Marc Short agreed that Republicans should try and get a vote and that they could have one when they returned but he continued on to say that Congress should go back to their initial goal for a full repeal of the ACA. It was initially reported that that was their priority when Donald Trump won the election but was their ultimate goal since it became law in 2010.
GOP allow getting cornered by 'Trumpism'
The Republican Party also won a congressional majority and state elections nationwide during the 2016 election turning their 7-year-old call to get rid of Obamacare into more of a reality. That is, up until they were faced with their constituents back home. But Congress was slammed for their effort to repeal without having a replacement, a decision considered unwise as it would take health care away from millions of people.
So far, reaching across the aisle to Democrats is not an option for Republicans, neither is fixing any of the issues with the current law.
Democrats have said that they are willing to work with members of the conservative party but have also said that a repeal is a non-starter. Regarding the position that House Republicans were in back in early May when they were forced to pass the AHCA, it was only a matter of time before they gave in to President Trump's tactics of risking everything. Those representatives returned to their districts to be confronted by their constituents who they fought with despite their outrage. This could suggest that it's only a matter of time before the Senate submits to President Trump's demands as well.
