Monday night, Sens Lee and Moran effectively killing the Better Care Reconciliation Act (BCRA) when they announced they would not support the bill, leaving Senate Republicans with no foreseeable path forward to repeal and replace Obamacare. Sens Lee and Moran joined three other Republican Senators refusing to support the bill.
Shortly after it was apparent the BCRA didn’t have the votes to open up debate, Senate Majority Leader McConnell announced he’d hold a clean repeal vote. McConnell indicated the vote would provide “two-year to provide for a stable transition.”
Republicans voted for this very same repeal repeatedly during the Obama presidency.
Tuesday, three of the caucus’s more moderate Republicans expressed varying degrees of concern for a clean repeal of Obamacare: Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH), Sen. Shelly Moore Capito (R-WV), and Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME). All three voted for a clean repeal in 2015 under the shelter of presidential veto.
And remember, Sen. McCain is still recovering from brain surgery, unable to vote — leaving the caucus four vote shy.
According to some reports, McConnell will hold the clean repeal vote, regardless.
But what did the 2015 repeal entail? No regulatory repeals, for starters:
Neither did the bill rein in Medicaid expansion.
Regardless, the GOP caucus needs to get their act together. The lack of planning and failure to galvanize support before taking legislation or votes public is pathetically amateurish.
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