Chaos In The Senate As 4 Republican Senators Threaten To Sink Skinny Obamacare Repeal Bill

Republican Senators Lindsey Graham (SC), John McCain (AZ), Ron Johnson (WI), and Bill Cassidy (LA) held a joint press conference to announce that they would vote no on the skinny Obamacare repeal bill unless they got assurances from Paul Ryan that it would never become law.

Video of Lindsey Graham trashing the bill as a fraud:

Graham called the bill a fraud because it doesn’t repeal or replace Obamacare. He also correctly pointed out that the legislation would collapse the insurance market, and that Republicans would own the collapse because they are the ones who passed the repeal bill.

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John McCain repeated his call for a bipartisan process with Democratic votes, and all of the Senators were not satisfied with the bill as a piece of legislation.

Here is where we stand. Senate Republicans will only vote for the bill if they are certain that it will never become law. The Freedom Caucus in the House has already told Paul Ryan that the legislation that the Senate will be voting on is dead on arrival, so that means that Ryan can try to sneak the Senate bill through the House this weekend, or he can use it to set up a conference with the Senate where the final bill will be drafted.

The Republican effort to repeal Obamacare could die tonight, or it could drag on for months.

The one thing that is known is that Mitch McConnell’s skinny repeal bill still doesn’t have the votes needed to pass.

Jason Easley

Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.

Awards and  Professional Memberships

Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association