It appears that “repeal now, replace later” has collapsed as well, with three Republican senators against it. That’s the news that made me laugh out loud.
Since McCain is not on the list of those opposed, his absence due to illness or death would not affect the vote.
Bolding mine.
I don’t doubt that there will be continued efforts to repeal/replace Obamacare, but at least for the time being Republican efforts seem to have fizzled.
Erasing the black president from the history books has come down to duct tape and flop sweat. Can they do it, folks?!
Is it not the case that McCain’s absence requires any GOP health care legislation to garner the votes of all but one GOP senator, rather than all but two? They could withstand two defections only because that would result in a 50-50 tie with Pence casting the tiebreaker. With McCain out two defections would be 50-49 against and bill defeated.
McConnell is throwing another $200 billion at the moderates to get them to vote for repeal. I hope it doesn’t work.
Trump is throwing his whole weight behind Mr Turtle. Wish he was throwing it on him. Reptile Jello.
Yes. McCain could always be counted upon to spew something conscience-sounding for the cameras but still vote the party line.
Maybe he should have. Maybe an epidemic of food poisoning would’ve been…inspirational.
Exactly.
Don’t you mean “all but two, rather than all but three”? I agree with the rest of your post but it doesn’t seem consistent with the first sentence.
The Vice President breaks tie votes in the Senate.
It’s now 2 days later. Since then, House Freedom Caucus started trying to force the House to vote on a clean repeal. McCain’s illness was revealed. And Trump had a pep talk over lunch yesterday where he yet again changed his mind, from “just let it fail” to “I’ll destroy the career of any Senator who stands in the way of repealing Obamacare!”
Did I miss anything? Where does it stand as of this morning?
Republicans have 52 seats. If 2 Republicans break from their party and vote against the bill, the vote is 50-50. Pence breaks the tie, and the bill passes. It takes 3 defectors to kill the bill.
But if 2 Republicans votes against the bill, and one Republican doesn’t vote at all, it would be yes=49/no=50. The bill is defeated. There’s nothing Pence can do about it.
Which is why they really need McCain to be there when they vote on it.
Trump is set to make a major speech from Mar A Lago that if any Republican leaves DC during the next four months, they will be arrested for disloyalty to a guy who won the popular vote bigly, which nobody expected. He will repeat this message at rallies scheduled over the next few weekends at every golf course he owns.
This afternoon, Senator Ted Cruz and Representative Steve King will propose a new health care plan to kick every sick American out of their health care plans, making health insurance much, much more affordable for the 115 healthiest families in America. Also, the bill includes a plan to “take care” of the sickest Americans with free injections of small amounts of polonium, a proposal which will be called PutinCare.
I laughed.
I was speaking to the specific case of three Republican Senators being opposed, which is what was cited in the article. If one of them changes their mind and decides to vote for it, then McCain’s absence would make a difference. (This is also on the assumption that he would have voted for it.)
How wild would it be, that if he would’ve voted “yes” for the bill before his diagnosis/surgery, but it, after all, changed his mind on the upcoming vote to “no” in consideration of those less fortunate than him financially and circumstantially?
Hope springs eternal.
In regards to McCain, I can help thinking of that old line from Airplane 2: Irony can be pretty ironic sometimes.
So he doesn’t even understand the difference between health insurance and life insurance?
Why am I not surprised?
For the rich, it doesn’t make sense to have health insurance. Since they have so much money, they can essentially self-insure themselves. Like all insurance, in the long run, they’ll likely save money if they can cover the losses themselves since they aren’t paying for the insurance company profit.
So I’m not at all surprised that the rich have no clue how important insurance is to most of us, or how it even works in the first place. It’s the “Let them eat cake!” mentality. What’s the big deal if you don’t have insurance? Just tell the doctor to send the bill to your trust fund manager and he’ll take care of it.