On Tuesday, both President Trump and House Speaker Paul Ryan pooh-poohed Senate Republicans for not being able to get an Obamacare repeal bill done, as Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., mulls whether to even schedule a vote.
‘We were very disappointed by a couple of senators, Republican senators, I must say,’ President Trump told reporters from the White House. ‘We were very disappointed that they would take the attitude that they did.’
The president was referring to Sens. Rand Paul, R-Ky., John McCain, R-Ariz., and Susan Collins, R-Maine, who announced they would vote no on the Graham-Cassidy bill, the latest GOP effort to kill Obamacare.
‘But we are disappointed in certain so-called Republicans,’ Trump said, not mentioning the trio’s names.
Both President Trump (left) and House Speaker Paul Ryan (right) vented frustrations Tuesday that the GOP-held Senate couldn’t get an Obamacare repeal bill done
Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, announced last night she would vote against the Graham-Cassidy measure citing the findings of a preliminary Congressional Budget Office report
On Friday, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., announced that he wouldn’t be voting for the Republicans’ latest health care measure
Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., was the first GOP senator to announced he was a solid no vote, saying he felt the Graham-Cassidy bill wasn’t a true repeal of Obamacare
At his own presser across town, Ryan seemed dismayed.
‘Well, obviously in the House, we’re a little frustrated because the House has done its job, we passed our health care bill last May,’ he said. ‘So yes we’re a little frustrated that the Senate has not acted on a seminal promise health care, which, by the way, Obamacare is collapsing.’
House Republicans passed the American Health Care Act in the House of Representatives with only one vote to spare. No Democrats voted in favor of their bill and 20 of their own members voted nay.
In the Senate, where Republicans have an even slimmer majority, the road to passage would have been even more narrow, with the GOP only able to afford two defections in the expected party-line vote.
First, Paul announced he wasn’t on board the plan, which took Obamacare dollars and sent them back to the states in the form of block grants.
Then on Friday, McCain said he wasn’t going to vote for the bill, with Collins following suit Monday night.
A number of senators had also expressed that they were on the fence including Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas – who also outed Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, as a maybe – and Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska.
McConnell now must choose whether to pull the bill, as it’s basically a pre-determined failure.
Trump gave a, ‘We’ll see what happens,’ when asked by a reporter if he wanted to see a floor vote.
‘It’s going along and at some point, there will be a repeal and replace,’ Trump said.