President Donald Trump on Monday applied pressure on Senate Republicans to support a procedural vote on an Obamacare repeal bill — even though Senate leadership hasn’t yet specified which bill senators will be asked to advance on Tuesday.
After a hiccup 22 words into remarks from the White House — Trump said Americans had been living with Obamacare as law “for the past 17 years,” not seven — the President discussed the stories of families gathered behind him at the White House and blamed Democrats for passing Obamacare despite “lies” about what it could achieve.
Most of his remarks, though, seemed designed to pressure Republican senators on the fence about the Obamacare repeal effort — which began with Senate leadership drafting a bill that included deep longterm cuts to Medicaid in secret.
There are now multiple potential bills that could be considered for a vote, including a simple “repeal” bill, which would leave two years for legislators to write a replacement (if any) for Obamacare, a version of Senate Republicans’ repeal bill that includes Sen. Ted Cruz’s (R-TX) amendment to allow the sale of unregulated insurance plans, and others.
“For the last seven years Republicans have been united in standing up for Obamacare’s victims,” Trump said. “Remember: repeal and replace, repeal and replace? They kept saying it over and over again. Every Republican running for office promised immediate relief from this disastrous law. We as a party must fulfill that solemn promise to the voters of this country to repeal and replace, what they’ve been saying for the last seven years.”
“But so far Senate Republicans have not done their job in ending the Obamacare nightmare,” he continued. “They now have a chance, however, to hopefully, hopefully fix what has been so badly broken for such a long time.”
Trump described in general terms a repeal bill that would provide “tax credits so Americans can purchase a private plan that is right for them and their families,” funding to combat the nationwide opioid crisis and “flexibility for states to administer Medicaid to better serve their poorer citizens.”
Trump then added: “Tomorrow, the Senate will vote on whether to allow this urgently needed bill to come to the Senate floor for debate. The question for every senator, Democrat or Republican, is whether they will side with Obamacare’s architects, which have been so destructive to our country, or with its forgotten victims. Any senator who votes against starting debate is telling America that you are fine with the Obamacare nightmare, which is what it is.”
Senate Republicans, he said, now had a chance “to keep their promise.”
“Over and over again, they said repeal and replace, repeal and replace,” he continued. “But they can now keep their promise to the American people to provide emergency relief to those in desperate need of help, and to improve health care for all Americans.”
Yep…time to keep a nebulous ‘promise’ that you never THOUGHT about or fleshed out or gave any particulars about RATHER than do something ‘good’ for the country and the electorate. FU Trump. You don’t care. You just want something to sign…other than an executive order that your railed against with Obama but is the only thing you’ve accomplished.
We want the $12/year/person covers all health care plan tramp described to the NYT>
Instead we could get DonTcare.
If Bush was The Deciderer, then Trump is: The Projector.
At least I’m playing with a full deck. I listened to him-- thought it was impossible for hm to demand that senators vote on a bill without knowing which one. He doesn’t care which one, I guess.
He also described a bill that has enough funds for opioid and the rest. No such bill exists. If they could have bribed their way out of it, they would have done so before now
Hey Republican Senators! How does it feel to get called out by Hair Furor? Does it feel good to have a man who obviously has no interest in the particulars of legislation castigate you because you want to do what’s best for your constituencies? This man who wants you to stay in DC until you reach a deal to screw over Americans, while he goes to New Jersey (NEW JERSEY!?!) for most of the month to get some golf in? There are so few of you who have shown some backbone. Don’t lose it now!