Obamacare Repeal Fails as McCain Casts Decisive No Vote

The Affordable Care Act (ACA) has been the target of Republican leaders and their base since its passage.  With full control Congress and the White House, they now hold the power to make changes. They are certain of their desire to remove the funding mechanism for ACA -- a tax on the wealthiest citizens -- everything else be damed including millions of citizens who will not be able to obtain or afford coverage.

On May 4th, the House GOP voted to take healthcare away from at least 23 million Americans according to the Congressional Budget Office report, which came after the vote was rushed through.

A group of Republican Senators operated in secrecy on the Senate's version of a "healthcare" bill to take away said healthcare from nearly 10% of the country and cut taxes on the wealthiest.  In late June, they unveiled a plan to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act with no healthcare for millions of individuals.  They fortunately failed to garner 50 votes and it failed in its current form in mid-July.

On Thursday evening July 27, 2017 rolling into Friday's wee hours, the Senate rejected the latest Affordable Care Act repeal effort, again seemingly derailing the GOP campaign to strip millions of citizens of healthcare.

The Senate on Friday rejected a new, scaled-down Republican plan to repeal parts of the Affordable Care Act, seemingly derailing the Republicans’ seven-year campaign to dismantle the health care law.

Senator John McCain cast a decisive vote to defeat the proposal, joining two other Republicans, Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, in opposing it.

The 49-51 vote was a huge setback for the majority leader, Mitch McConnellof Kentucky, who has spent the last three months trying to devise a repeal bill that could win support from members of his conference. It was also a blow to President Trump, who lashed out.

Common sense, compassion, and intelligence prevail for the time being.  However, Republicans have plenty of ways to harm Obamacare nonetheless by stripping reimbursements to insurers forcing them to leave the exchanges, ending marketing of the healthcare plans, and more.

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/27/us/politics/senate-health-care-vote.html