Republicans vote to continue with Obamacare repeal – finally

Senate Republicans voted on Capitol Hill Tuesday to open the halted debate on repealing Obamacare, a feat that seemed impossible just last week.

To show his support and participate in the vote, Senator John McCain who was recently diagnosed with brain cancer,  returned to the Hill and was given a standing ovation as he cast his vote – the 50th. Vice President Mike Pence had to break the 50-50tie  after both Sens. Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski opposed the stance, Politico reports.

The just concluded vote does not automatically translate into a complete health care plan, but another opportunity to either repeal parts of the Affordable Healthcare Act or ditch efforts to both repeal and replace completely. The Republicans after voting on the amendments, plan to repeal the individual mandates, employer mandates and the medical device aspects of Obamacare.

 The major aim of doing this is to get the repeal bill to go through to the House, the goal would be to get an Obamacare repeal bill through the Senate and to a conference with the House. House Majority leader Mitch McConnell urged the Senators not to work towards relieving Americans of Obamacare, he said;  “I’d like to reiterate what the president said yesterday. ‘Any senator who votes against starting debate,’ he said, ‘is telling America that you are fine with the Obamacare nightmare…’ That’s a position that even Democrats have found hard to defend”.

 

Republicans have said that in order to help low-income Americans, there is an ongoing discussion to add up to a $100 billion to earlier drafts and they might consider settling for a scaled back version of Obamacare to enable them to pass and get through to a conference.

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