Republican Sen. Susan Collins, who voted against her party's last attempt to repeal Obamacare
One of the many agonies of Tuesday night is the idea that much of President Obama’s work over the past eight years might be washed away by Trump and the GOP Congress. In some cases, there’s no doubt that will happen. But the biggest piece of Obama’s legacy, the Affordable Care Act, is not going to be as easy to kill as some are currently thinking.
To get rid of Obamacare, Republicans will need a bill to pass both Houses of Congress and be signed by President Trump (I know we all just gagged a little there, but we’re gonna have to get through it). If the Senate GOP simply brought a repeal vote to the floor under regular order, the 48 Senate Democrats would easily filibuster it to death.
More likely, they will bring repeal up through reconciliation, through which they can repeal most of the ACA with just 50 votes. (They could also just eliminate the filibuster entirely, so either way 50 votes will be the number.) No Senate Democrats have voted for repeal, so the GOP will start out needing 50 of 52 Republican votes. When this same bill came up in 2015, Republican Sen. Susan Collins voted against it, so they may already be down to 51.
At the time, other Republican senators expressed grave doubts about the bill before ultimately voting for it, with the safety of knowing that Obama would veto it and that the vote would be nothing more than a messaging tool.
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