With no Democratic support, Senate Republicans can only afford two votes against the bill – and there are already more than that. “I think that they’ll probably get there, but we’ll have to wait and see”.
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Republican leaders are planning to bring it to a final vote next week, as McConnell tries to get the 142-page bill passed in the Senate before the July 4 recess.
Heller, who faces re-election in 2018 in the Democratic-leaning state, said on Friday: “I can not support a piece of legislation that takes away insurance from tens of millions of Americans and hundreds of thousands of Nevadans”.
President Trump tweeted that he is “very supportive of the Senate health care bill, and looks forward to making it really special”.
In his statement, Obama said the Senate bill is “not a health care bill”.
Heller echoed his colleagues’ sentiments on Friday.
Republicans unveiled a “discussion draft” of the Better Care Reconciliation Act on Thursday, the GOP replacement for former President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act.
Four Republicans quickly came out in opposition – Mr Ted Cruz, Mr Mike Lee, Mr Ron Johnson and Dr Rand Paul – while at least three more Republicans have openly expressed serious concerns. Its flat tax credits, which provided identical assistance to the poor and the wealthy, would price millions of near-elderly low-income workers out of the insurance market and trap millions more in poverty.
“It’s not that they’re opposed”, he said. He added that Nevada “is one of the most improved states in the country” in expanding coverage.
However Mr Obama, whose best-known domestic policy achievement stands to crumble, offered a scathing critique of the new Bill just hours after its release.
For the House of Representative’s version of healthcare, Trump held regular meetings with representatives at the White House.
“The Medicaid cuts are even more draconian that the House bill was, though they take effect more gradually than the House bill did”, Pearson says. The long-awaited plan marks a big step toward achieving one of the Republican Party’s major goals.
McConnell said in an interview with Reuters last month that he told Trump early on in the process that he did not need his help but that there may be a role for him later. The bill’s subsidies for people outside of Medicare, Medicaid, and the employer-based insurance system could simply be given to the states to distribute to that population without having to comply with Obamacare’s regulations.
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Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst is suggesting Iowans would not be losing Medicaid coverage even as the Senate GOP health care bill would phase out financing to expand the low-income insurance program.
