Vice President Mike Pence on Tuesday said he and President Donald Trump are completely behind Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s (R-KY) push to let members vote on a “repeal only” amendment to Republicans’ failed bill to repeal and replace Obamacare.
“President Trump and I fully support the majority leader’s decision to move forward with a bill that just repeals Obamacare and gives Congress time, as the President said, to work on a new health care plan that will start with a clean slate,” Pence said in his remarks at the National Retail Federation’s annual summit.
Pence said he and Trump are “grateful” for efforts by McConnell and “the vast majority of Republicans” to repeal and replace Obamacare.
“As the President said just earlier today, most Republicans were loyal, terrific and worked really hard,” he said. “And there are no truer words.”
Pence called on the Senate to “vote to repeal now and replace later or return to the legislation carefully crafted in the House and Senate.”
“Either way, inaction is not an option. Congress needs to step up, Congress needs to do their job and Congress needs to do their job now,” he said. “As the President said with his inexhaustible optimism and determination, stay tuned. We will return.”
Sens. Mike Lee (R-UT) and Jerry Moran (R-KS) on Monday night announced their opposition to the Senate repeal bill, leaving the proposal without enough support to move forward. Shortly afterward, McConnell announced that he would let members vote for a “repeal only” amendment to the House version of the legislation if they mustered enough votes to bring the base legislation to the Senate floor.
