Trump urges lawmakers to start over on health care bill after 2 GOP senators effectively killed it
(Donald Trump.Mark Wilson/Getty Images)
President Donald Trump urged Republican lawmakers not to give up on its latest fledgling attempt to pass a health care bill Monday night.
"Republicans should just REPEAL failing ObamaCare now & work on a new Healthcare Plan that will start from a clean slate," Trump tweeted. "Dems will join in."
The president's social-media remarks came shortly after two GOP senators announced they would oppose the Better Care Reconciliation Act (BCRA), the Senate's health care bill that was set for a vote within a week, after Sen. John McCain returned from surgery.
Sens. Jerry Moran of Kansas and Mike Lee of Utah announced that they both would vote no on a motion to proceed to debate on the bill, effectively killing the bill and preventing it from moving forward.
Trump has often sought to publicly influence lawmakers' conversations about the effort to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, employing his own Twitter account to pressure congressmembers into action.
The president launched into a tweetstorm on the health care bill last week in Paris while riding in his motorcade to attend Bastille Day celebrations.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell conceded as much in a statement of his own Monday night:
"Regretfully, it is now apparent that the effort to repeal and immediately replace the failure of Obamacare will not be replaced. So, 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: a repeal of Obamacare with a two-year delay to provide for a stable transition period to a patient-centered healthcare system that gives Americans access to quality affordable care."
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