Repeal ACA Rejected Again – Updated

July 25, 2017: There is a lot of bad dialogue going on in the news these days. In my last three posts, I have tried to point out what can be passed by Repubs with just 51 votes and what requires 60 votes. Much thought being given to defunding Planned Parenthood and the Mandate(s). If Repubs chose to follow Reconciliation and not nuke it and/or the supermajority vote, both of the defunding and the elimination of the Mandate(s) are not going to happen. The Parliamentarian decided on 60 votes for each to pass.

“The discussions came as the Senate rejected 45-55 a straight repeal of Obamacare with a two-year delay in implementation to allow Congress to work out a replacement. Seven Republicans opposed the measure.”

In the 2015 bill, Republicans had attempted to kill the mandate. The parliamentarian had ruled it could not be done in Reconciliation. “In 2015 the Senate revised the ACA repeal reconciliation bill passed by the House after the Parliamentarian ruled that it could not repeal the individual and employer mandates under the Byrd rule, amending the bill to repeal only the penalties imposed by the mandates.” This would require sixty votes to accomplish if not amended. The Senate could eliminate the monetary penalty.

July 26, 2017: Sens. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn.; Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va.; Susan Collins, R-Maine; Dean Heller, R-Nev.; John McCain, R-Ariz.; Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska; and Rob Portman, R-Ohio, joined all Democrats to defeat the amendment, which would have given Congress two years to devise a replacement to the 2010 Affordable Care Act.

July 27, 2017: Not going to raise the flag in honor of McCain voting “no” as he should have done this long ago. McCain’s reasoning for voting against the repeal and/or amend is false.

“McCain said that he’s repeated time and time again that one of the ‘major failures’ of Obamacare was that it was “rammed through Congress by Democrats on a strict-party line basis without a single Republican vote.’

‘We should not make the mistakes of the past that has led to Obamacare’s collapse, including in my home state of Arizona where premiums are skyrocketing and health care providers are fleeing the marketplace,’ McCain said.”

Republicans had every opportunity to participate in designing the ACA and refused to do so. That premiums are increasing have two reasons. The lack of control of the rising cost of the healthcare industrial complex and the blocking of the Risk Corridor Program by Sessions, Upton, and Kingston.

– People have been claiming McCain is a maverick and he bucks party lines. Not really as he goes with the flow 87% of the time. He just took an opportunity to stick it to Trump and some others. The real Maverick who voted “NO” was Susan Collins who votes the party line 60% of the time.

– July 28, 2017: Now Trump again has threatened to kill the ACA by blocking the CSR subsidies to those between 100% and 250% FPL attacking the low income citizens.

– In passing the blame around for the Republican failure to repeal and amend the ACA; Congressional Idiot Louis Gohmert crawls out from under his rock. “I pray for Senator McCain, for his health, his full recovery from the cancer but it doesn’t give him the right to make people suffer more under the current ACA,”

– Always the positive aww shuck guy Paul Ryan: “‘We were sent to Washington to fulfill the pledges we made to our constituents. While the House delivered a bill to repeal and replace Obamacare, unfortunately the Senate was unable to reach a consensus,’ Ryan said in a statement Friday. ‘I am disappointed and frustrated, but we should not give up. I encourage the Senate to continue working toward a real solution that keeps our promise.'”