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In this Tuesday, July 25, 2017, photo, Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine is surrounded by reporters as she arrives on Capitol Hill in Washington, before a test vote on the Republican health care bill. Collins, who was one of three Republican senators voting against the GOP health bill on Friday, July 28, said she's troubled by Trump's suggestions that the insurance payments are a "bailout."
In this Tuesday, July 25, 2017, photo, Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine is surrounded by reporters as she arrives on Capitol Hill in Washington, before a test vote on the Republican health care bill. Collins, who was one of three Republican senators voting against the GOP health bill on Friday, July 28, said she's troubled by Trump's suggestions that the insurance payments are a "bailout."
In this Tuesday, July 25, 2017, photo, Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine is surrounded by reporters as she arrives on Capitol Hill in Washington, before a test vote on the Republican health care bill. Collins, who was one of three Republican senators voting against the GOP health bill on Friday, July 28, said she's troubled by Trump's suggestions that the insurance payments are a "bailout."
Susan Collins Collins: Trump's threat to end ObamaCare payments won't change my vote Collins recounts 'heartwarming' welcome in Maine after healthcare 'no' vote Kelly starts new White House gig Monday amid high hopes from Republicans MORE said President Trump's threats to cut off funding for key ObamaCare payments won't change her vote on the GOP's plan to repeal it. the cost-sharing reduction payments, as well as his apparent threat to cut off the healthcare benefits of members of Congress if they don't pass a new bill, would change her vote.
Maine residents are lambasting health care insurers for proposing double-digit premium hikes they say would hurt the state's middle and lower classes. Harvard Pilgrim and Anthem Inc. have both said they may leave the Affordable Care Act marketplace in the nation's oldest state next year, citing rising health care costs driven by pharmaceutical drug prices and uncertainty over the health care law's future.
After the Senate Thursday night narrowly rejected his ham-handed efforts to ram through an Obamacare repeal that the health care industry, the insurance industry, most governors and the American people did not want, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell finally got something right. "It's time to move on," he said.
Donald Trump had his worst day since he was elected president - we'll just call it Friday - and his worst week since the last one. Things can only get worser and worser, as the Bard would permit me to say.
The U.S. Senate passed a "motion to proceed," which allows them to debate and vote on a replacement plan for the Affordable Care Act. What will they be proceeding to? Nobody knows.
Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, was one of three Republicans to reject the 'skinny repeal' plan. Melina Mara/The Washington Post Hundreds of people stood outside the U.S. Capitol Thursday, to protest the Republican health care bill as the Senate worked overnight on the legislation.
The rushed, secretive, reckless effort to get a "win," any win, by undoing the Obama health care plan is at an end-for now. It is over because the 48 Democratic and independent senators led by Chuck Schumer refused to be peeled off or to support a measure that was opposed by most of the public and by all professional groups involved in health care.
It can seem impossible to keep up with all the news these days, so here's what happened this week in a New York minute. Earlier in the week, the Senate opened debate on healthcare legislation, but Republicans failed to pass a bill replacing Obamacare, one simply repealing much of it, and a "skinny repeal" bill.
With Sen. John McCain casting a dramatic decisive vote, the Senate early Friday morning narrowly defeated a scaled back bill dismantling the 2010 health law, leaving in question the future of GOP promises to repeal the law known as Obamacare. The 49-51 defeat capping hours of drama on the Senate floor - left open the question of whether congressional Republicans can carry through with a key 2016 key promise to repeal the law known as Obamacare.
Senator John McCain was one of three Republican "no" votes against the GOP health care plan early Friday morning, and is being hailed as the man who killed the so-called Obamacare "skinny repeal." "We should not make the mistakes of the past that has led to Obamacare's collapse, including in my home state of Arizona where premiums are skyrocketing and health care providers are fleeing the marketplace," McCain said in a statement.
Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, warned that the Republican failure to pass a bill to repeal parts of Obamacare will disappoint Republican voters around the country who were told the GOP was going to dismantle the law. "There are going to be a great many Americans who tonight feel a sense of betrayal, feel a sense of betrayal that politicians stood up and made a promise," Cruz said early Friday morning.
In a moment of high drama on the Senate floor, the Arizona senator, stricken with brain cancer and railing against his party's secretive legislative maneuvering, provided the decisive vote against Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's proposal to partially repeal the Affordable Care Act. The amendment fell, xx-xx, thwarting once again the GOP's longstanding efforts to deliver on a central campaign promise.
Senators early Friday narrowly rejected a dramatically slimmed-down Obamacare repeal bill, even after being promised by GOP leaders that the measure would never actually become law. The strategy was a desperate and ultimately unsuccessful gambit by Republican leaders, who had run out of options after failing to convince their majority to pass legislation to repeal the Affordable Care Act and replace it with a promised new healthcare plan.
A private conversation between two senators that was caught on a live microphone reveals a tense climate among lawmakers and with the White House. Susan Collins, a Maine Republican, mocked Representative Blake Farenthold, who'd suggested he might challenge her to a duel if she weren't a woman because of her opposition to holding a vote to get rid of Obamacare.
President Donald Trump exhorted every Republican to vote yes on a healthcare overhaul when it comes before the Senate this week, but one of his party's most vocal opponents of the bill, Senator Susan Collins, said he had made no effort to reach her. "The Democrats aren't giving us one vote, so we need virtually every single vote from the Republicans, not easy to do," Trump declared Monday in the White House, appearing with families he said had been harmed by Obamacare.
It was just five days ago that John McCain, the longtime Arizona senator, two-time presidential candidate and perhaps America's most famous prisoner of war, was diagnosed with a deadly form of brain cancer. And yet, McCain is set to make a dramatic return to the U.S. Senate Tuesday for a key vote on health care.
President Donald Trump's critics view Republican congressmen as his enablers. James Fallows, in the Atlantic, describes their behavior as the most discouraging weakness our governing system has shown since Trump took office.