How many times in the last few months has Donald Trump claimed "we have the votes" to pass a repeal of healthcare coverage? Repeatedly, and it's never been true.
Now he actually does have the votes to help stabilize the health insurance markets in the form of the Alexander-Murray compromise bill, which would get the 60 votes necessary to pass if Republicans would only put it to a vote. But they won’t, because Trump. TPM's Alice Ollstein writes:
But while at least 60 senators are lined up ready to cast their votes in favor of the bill, which was hammered out over months of delicate bipartisan negotiations, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) is refusing to allow a vote until President Trump gives the bill his blessing. [...]
Since abruptly ordering billions of payments to insurers be cut off, Trump has cycled through every possible position on the bill to resume the payments—one day praising it and taking credit for the negotiations that created it, the next day blasting it as a “bailout” for insurance companies, and the next laying out demands for changes certain to kill its chances of passage.
GOP Sen. Lamar Alexander reportedly spent a lot of time on the phone making sure Trump was comfortable with it before it was unveiled, but Trump reneged. Or maybe he simply can’t recall from one moment to the next what he’s actually said. That’s got Democratic Minority Leader Chuck Schumer begging Republicans to do something that might actually help the American people.
In this face of this blockade, the Senate’s Democratic leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) took to [the] floor Monday afternoon to plead with the President.
“Let me make a direct appeal,” he said. “Mr. President, come out and support the Alexander-Murray bill. You’ve called it ‘a very good solution’ already. Announce you’ll support it, and it will pass through the Senate soon after.”
So if Trump continues to withhold his blessing and McConnell happily stands idly by without holding a vote, just remember who killed healthcare coverage for thousands and thousands of Americans.
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