WASHINGTON
(Reuters) - Republicans in the U.S. Congress were in chaos over healthcare
legislation after a second attempt to pass a bill in the Senate collapsed late
on Monday, with President Donald Trump calling for an outright repeal of
Obamacare and others seeking a change in direction toward bipartisanship.
"Regretfully,
it is now apparent that the effort to repeal and immediately replace the
failure of Obamacare will not be successful," Senate Majority Leader Mitch
McConnell said in a statement.
Two of
McConnell's Senate conservatives announced just hours earlier that they would
not support the Republican leader's latest version of legislation to repeal
portions of President Barack Obama's landmark 2010 healthcare law and replace
them with new, less costly healthcare provisions.
With
Republican Senators Mike Lee and Jerry Moran joining Senators Susan Collins and
Rand Paul in opposition - and amid a solid wall of opposition from Democrats -
McConnell no longer had enough votes to pass a Republican healthcare bill in
the 100-member Senate.
It was the
latest in a series of healthcare setbacks for Republicans, despite their
control of both chambers of Congress and the White House.
It also came
after seven straight years of promising voters that they would repeal Obamacare
if they were to control Congress and the White House, only to find that the
public liked Obamacare more than their proposed substitutes, according to
public opinion polls.
The
non-partisan Congressional Budget Office has determined that the various
versions of Republican healthcare legislation would result in anywhere from 18
million to 23 million people losing their health insurance.
However,
Republicans argue that Obamacare is a government over-reach and costs too much
money.
Major Blow
Monday's
developments had an immediate impact on financial markets as Asian shares
stepped back from more than two-year highs on Tuesday and the dollar extended
losses. [nL3N1K907K]
In the
United States, the latest setback delivered a major political blow to Trump,
who has failed to win any major legislative initiative in the first six months
of his presidency.
In response,
Trump said on Twitter Congress should immediately repeal Obamacare and
"start from a clean slate" on a new healthcare plan. He said
Democrats would join such an effort, even though they have refused to have any
part of an Obamacare repeal.
McConnell,
apparently backing Trump's latest approach, announced that he would try to
bring legislation to repeal Obamacare to the Senate floor in coming days, but
with a two-year delay in implementation to assure a smooth transition.
That idea
was rejected by Republicans months ago in favor of simultaneously repealing and
replacing Obamacare in order to avoid chaos in insurance markets.
Republican
Senator John McCain, who is recovering from surgery in his home state of
Arizona, urged a much different change of course - bipartisanship.
"The
Congress must now return to regular order, hold hearings, receive input from
members of both parties" and pass a bill that "finally provides
Americans with access to quality and affordable health care," McCain said
in a statement.
"Start
from Scratch"
It was not
yet clear whether Republicans would get behind the latest Trump-McConnell plans
or McCain's prescription.
FILE PHOTO -
U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) speaks with the media ahead
of the vote to confirm Judge Neil Gorsuch as Associate Justice of the Supreme
Court at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, U.S., April 7, 2017.
Aaron P.
Bernstein/File Photo
Like McCain,
Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer held out the possibility of
bipartisanship. In a statement, he urged Republicans to "start from
scratch and work with Democrats on a bill that lowers premiums, provides
long-term stability to the markets and improves our health care system."
Republicans
in Congress had been hoping to settle on a healthcare bill before an upcoming August
recess so they could begin work in earnest in September on a wide-ranging
rewrite of the U.S. tax code.
House of
Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan had no immediate comment on the next steps he
would like to see following the collapse of the healthcare bill in the Senate.
One health
industry lobbyist said that, in the run-up to the second collapse of the
Senate's healthcare bill this summer, there was growing anger among senators
over proposed Medicaid cuts and an amendment by Senator Ted Cruz that would
have allowed insurance companies to offer cheaper plans that did not have
Obamacare's guaranteed coverage of services such as maternity care.
A similar
version of the Senate bill passed the House in May but passage in the Senate
was always expected to be more difficult, given the deep tensions between
moderates and conservatives.
Moderates
worry about cuts to the Medicaid health insurance program for the poor and
disabled, while conservatives want those cuts as well as a more dramatic
dismantling of Obamacare's framework.
The first
version of the Senate bill failed to attract enough support, forcing
McConnell's office to revise it in a bid to make it more palatable. That
version was released last week.
Senator
Bernie Sanders, the former Democratic presidential candidate, celebrated what
he termed the "collapse" of the Republican effort.
"This
is a great victory for the millions of Americans who stood up and fought back
against this dangerous legislation," Sanders said in a statement.
Reuters
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