Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT), who opposes the bill pushed by House Republican leaders to repeal and replace Obamacare, on Tuesday evening said that the legislation will not pass in the House.
“I think they should cancel the vote because they don’t have the votes,” Lee told Fox News.
House Republican leaders have said the bill will come up for a vote on the House floor on Thursday. But some conservatives in the House are still opposed to the bill, leaving it unclear whether House leaders actually have enough votes to pass the bill.
Lee told Fox News that Republicans should not unite behind the bill currently working its way through the House.
“I don’t think this bill was what we promised. What we promised was, what we’ve been promising for seven years, is that if Republicans were given the chance to govern, we would repeal Obamacare root and branch. That’s not what this bill does, and that’s what we need to do. And that’s why I’m holding out for a vote that actually fulfills that promise,” he said.
“President Trump’s message has been hijacked. His agenda of repealing Obamacare has been hijacked by people who don’t share his values, by people who don’t share his desire to repeal Obamacare,” Lee later added.
Asked if if he felt House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) had hijacked Trump’s message, Lee said he wasn’t accusing any one person of doing that.
“This bill contains a false promise of providing Americans with meaningful health care cost relief,” Lee said.
