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Congressional Republicans Vow To Repeal Obamacare And Replace It Later Following Trumpcare’s Defeat


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Despite Monday’s defeat of the Senate’s version of the American Health Care Act, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) and Donald Trump vowed separately to press on with Republican efforts to repeal and replace Obamacare. The latter echoed comments made in late June, when he called on Congress to repeal the Affordable Care Act “immediately” and replace it with something better “at a later date,” while the former issued a statement suggesting the Senate would vote to adopt “portions” of the House bill later this week.

“Republicans should just REPEAL failing ObamaCare now & work on a new Healthcare Plan that will start from a clean slate,” the president tweeted late Monday night. “Dems will join in!” Interestingly, Trump’s post echoed the sentiment of Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-New York), who said “Republicans should start from scratch and work with Democrats” on new health legislation in a statement late Monday. Whether their respective comments were intentionally or coincidentally related, however, remains to be seen.

McConnell, meanwhile, explained post-health bill defeat that “in the coming days, the Senate will vote to take up the House bill with the first amendment in order being what a majority of the Senate has already supported in 2015 and that was vetoed by then-President Obama.” In other words, Senate Republicans and the Congressional GOP at large want to “repeal of Obamacare with a two-year delay to provide for a stable transition period to a patient-centered health care system that gives Americans access to quality, affordable care.”


That Democrats will, despite Trump and Schumer’s separate declarations, “join in” on a brand new effort to replace Obamacare with something else seems highly unlikely. This is especially the case since, as McConnell’s proposal indicates, Senate Republicans want to slash all or most of the Affordable Care Act’s major provisions, then take at least two years to replace it with something of their own devising. Either way, Trumpcare’s momentary defeat on Monday didn’t stop the president from tweeting at length about it come Tuesday morning.

(Via CNBC)