Senators Refuse To Honor Promise To American People

In the latest example of failure of the United States Senate to do their part in actually governing the country, obstructionist Democrats were joined by seven turncoat Republicans to stop the latest attempt by the body to repeal the ACA, better known as Obamacare. The conservative-backed would have repealed most of ObamaCare and given lawmakers a two-year period to replace the most needed parts.

The vote was 55-45 against the amendment, with seven Republicans opposing. The chamber’s 46 Democrats and two independent senators all voted against the measure. The measure, known as “straight repeal” would have given senators two years to come up with an acceptable replacement. But once again the attempt to remove once of the worst and most costly pieces of legislation in history went down to defeat Thanks to a few weak-kneed members of the GOP.

Today’s vote highlights the difficulty Republican senators are having trying to get their members all on the same page, something that seems to be a lot like herding cats in a field full of mice. The straight repeal bill was virtually identical to the one passed in 2015 by the GOP-controlled Congress. Of course, at that time there was no danger that the repeal would become law since Republicans knew it would be vetoed by then President Barack Obama.

Senate Republicans drafted their first repeal measure several months ago. But Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell at first was unable to get enough support to even hold a vote on that measure. But on Tuesday, McConnell, feeling like he had a shot at it this time, garnered enough support to open debate for this bill, with the expectation that lawmakers would be able to vote on a slew of amendments. A successful test vote was helped by the last minute arrival of Sen. John McCain, who voted to start debate.

But that help, was not enough when on Tuesday night members blocked a proposal by Republicans to repeal much of ObamaCare and replace it with a more restrictive plan. Then in today’s vote, Republican Sens. Susan Collins of Maine; Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia; John McCain of Arizona; Rob Portman of Ohio; Lamar Alexander of Tennessee; Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Dean Heller of Nevada, showed their true colors and knifed the President, the voters and the GOP yet again by voting against the bill.

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