Health-care for the miners, however, appears to be on track. Their opposition was a main ingredient in the legislation’s collapse a month ago, a humiliating episode for Republicans that called into question their ability to govern given that they’ve been promising for seven years to repeal and replace former President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act. They also hoped to chuck new financial rules.
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9 a.m.: This article was updated after the Senate vote.
But Republican leaders scrapped that vote after failing to round up enough support from more moderate Republicans, who opposed or remained undecided about some of the revamped health legislation’s provisions.
There were hardly any visible signs of shuttle diplomacy between the White House and lawmakers on Capitol Hill as leaders struggled to find votes. That gives lawmakers another week to work out a larger spending bill that would run through September.
Democrats retreated from a demand that an appropriation for the Obamacare insurer subsidies (a.k.a. cost-sharing reduction funds) be included, after the administration abandoned threats to withhold the subsidy payments it has continued making since Trump took office.
With little in the way of actual results so far, some Republicans have begun to fret openly about their thin record of accomplishments, and sound alarms about a backlash from voters if the GOP doesn’t begin to produce.
“I am optimistic that a final funding package will be completed soon”, said Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen, R-N.J., chairman of the House Appropriations Committee.
“I do think that enhancements in terms of border security, homeland security, and how much more of an uptick there will be in domestic spending in contrast to raising military spending [remain as sticking points]”, Crowley said.
It wasn’t supposed to be this way after eight years of chafing under Obama.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said the stopgap bill, which kept funding at current levels, “will carry us through next week so that a bipartisan agreement can be reached”.
Many of Trump’s campaign promises are at stake in this fight – and Democrats have made it clear they don’t want to concede on any of them. Every two years, he won easy victories while telling voters he was “fighting to repeal Obamacare”. “And we’re working with the Congress”. “We are very close she said”, but she wouldn’t give numbers. Sticking points remain, he said, but there was progress.
Ahead of a midnight deadline, the House and Senate today approved a temporary spending measure that will keep federal agencies open – but only for another week.
“We are seven months into the fiscal year”, said Representative Nita Lowey of NY, the top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee.
Democrats praised a $2 billion funding increase for the National Institutes of Health – rejecting steep cuts proposed by Trump – as well as additional funds to combat opioid abuse and fund Pell Grants for summer school.
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House Speaker Paul Ryan and other GOP leaders wouldn’t say how many more Republican votes they need to win, although several prior holdouts in the conservative House Freedom Caucus now publicly back the bill.
