With the Republicans Obamacare repeal effort having died no less than three times over the few days, on Tuesday afternoon Republicans announced the Senate would not vote on Republicans' last-ditch bill to repeal Obamacare, putting an end to their seven-year push for now. According to Politico, the decision was reached at a party lunch Tuesday after it became clear the plan would fail. Three Senate Republicans had already said they would vote against the measure, and the GOP could only afford two defections.
"We don't have the votes so it's probably best we don't do the vote," said Republican Sen. Steve Daines of Montana. "We've lost this battle, but we're going to win the war."
"Why have a vote if you know what the outcome is and it's not what you want. I don't know what you gain from that. But I do believe that the health care issue is not dead, and that's what counts," said GOP Sen. Richard Shelby of Alabama. "We've got some time this year to deal with it and I think we have to."
Vice President Mike Pence told Republicans they should keep working on health care and not give up just because a key procedural deadline to pass the bill with a simple majority expires after Sept. 30.
"He does" want us to keep working," said Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.). "He's conveyed it outside of that meeting [too]. The votes aren't there so let's keep massaging." However, Republicans may not opt to pursue a health care overhaul and tax code rewrite simultaneously, as some GOP lawmakers desire. Sen. Pat Toomey said it's it's better to "focus on taxes right now."
Earlier, Ted Cruz acknowledged his conference does not have the 50 Republican votes necessary to muscle the bill through the Senate. "There's more work to be done. I mean we don't yet have 50 votes. I think we're close and we need to continue working," he said.
The hail mary legislation sponsored by Sens. Bill Cassidy and Lindsey Graham would dismantle ObamaCare’s insurance subsidy program and Medicaid expansion and convert their funding into block grants to states.
Senate Republicans considered holding a vote they knew was doomed to fail to show the conservative grass roots and the broader party that they did all they could to dismantle the law. But there was also concern about the optics of going ahead with a failed vote. Republicans are also privately worried that President Donald Trump could continue to attack them if they give up on the effort publicly. Still, they said that they will continue to work on health-care reform, even though they will likely miss the Sept. 30 deadline for the special reconciliation bill that would allow them pass legislation with a simple majority vote.
Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee Chairman Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), who led bipartisan negotiations earlier this month with Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), said the environment simply isn't conducive to it.
"We stopped the bipartisan talks last week because my goal wasn't just to get a bipartisan agreement — it was to get a bipartisan result. I didn't see any way to get one in the current political environment," he said, shortly before Collins announced her opposition. "That environment hasn't changed, maybe it does change — but it hasn't."
Senator Susan Collins, one of three Republicans to publicly say they opposed the measure, urged colleagues to resume bipartisan negotiations in the Senate Health Committee between Chairman Lamar Alexander and Sen. Patty Murray.
“I think the best route is for us to resume the hearings in the HELP [Health, Education, Labor and Pensions] Committee that we were doing before we were diverted by Graham-Cassidy,” Collins told reporters. She said “it would be helpful if the vice president outlined his support for resuming the hearings in the HELP Committee and the negotiations that were making such good progress,” she said ahead of a Republican lunch with Vice President Mike Pence.
As the Hill adds, there had been talk about including ObamaCare repeal in a new budget reconciliation measure that has been planned for tax reform. That would allow both ObamaCare repeal and tax reform to be brought up under special rues that would prevent a filibuster. But that would also put tax reform at risk by pairing the issue with health care, and a number of key Republicans, including Cornyn and House Freedom Caucus Chairman Mark Meadows (R-N.C.), voiced opposition to that plan on Tuesday.