Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) on Monday said Republican senators have no idea what Obamacare repeal bill they’ll be voting on Tuesday at Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s (R-KY) request.
“Senator, what is up for a vote tomorrow? Could you update me?” Fox News’ Neil Cavuto asked.
“I thought you were going to tell me,” Paul replied. “I thought I was coming on air for you to tell me.”
Paul said Republican senators are completely in the dark about what measure they’ll cast on-record votes for or against on Tuesday.
“We have no earthly idea what we will be voting on tomorrow other than that it’ll be moving to the House bill, but everybody knows it’s not really going to be the House bill,” Paul said.
Last Tuesday, McConnell said he would hold a vote on a motion to proceed with a repeal bill, but neither of the proposals he has floated — a revival of the 2015 repeal-and-delay bill and a modified version of the current Republican bill to repeal and replace Obamacare — have the support of enough senators to pass.
To boot, Republican senators left town on Thursday with no idea which of McConnell’s proposals will serve as base legislation if they open debate on the repeal bill.
“Last week they said, well, we’re going to move to a clean repeal, the same vote we voted on in 2015, and I said hooray, that’s what we should be doing, that’s what we promised,” Paul said. “But now I’m told it may be the new Senate leadership bill.”
Paul said he considers that proposal “a big insurance bailout” that “doesn’t really repeal Obamacare.”
“So nobody’s told us,” he said. “There’s a lot of unknowns, and I don’t think we should move to the bill with so many unknowns unless we’re going to be told what exactly we’re going to move to.”
