Health care bill on brink of collapse as third Republican senator lashes out at McConnell
All 48 Democrats and two Republicans — Senators Rand Paul (KY) and Susan Collins (ME) — firmly oppose the Senate bill to repeal Obamacare. That means if Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and the Republicans lose one more vote, the bill will fail.
Before McConnell can even schedule a vote on the bill itself, he needs to round up 50 votes for a technical measure called a “motion to proceed.”
One positive sign for McConnell was that Ron Johnson (R-WI), who opposed a motion to proceed on an earlier version of the bill, announced he would support the motion to proceed this time.
Things have changed.
In an interview with his local Fox affiliate, WLUK, Johnson said he had changed his mind and declared that the motion to proceed was now “in jeopardy.” (Collins and Paul will also vote against the motion to proceed.)
Johnson said he was upset by reports that McConnell told moderate members of the Republican caucus “don’t worry about some of the Medicaid reforms” because “they are scheduled so far in the future they will never take effect.”
https://thinkprogress.org/third-republican-senator-lashes-out-at-mcconnell-f3ea8b5efce8
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