The Republican House Trumpcare 2.0 was dead on arrival in the Senate. Late last night the Senate’s second version (by my count that would have been 4.0) bled to death before it even reached the floor when two more senators defected to the rational side, or maybe not, depending on the reasons. It doesn’t matter, the bill was a disaster. Then just before midnight, Senate Majority Leader Mitch, the human-hybrid turtle, came up with the “genius” solution to just repeal the Affordable Care Act with a two year delay. The problem there was it could past the sniff test of reconciliation and would need 60 votes to pass. The need for 60 votes in this case is because, under the reconciliation act, if enacting, or in this case repealing, a bill it must be deficit neutral or decrease the deficit. In the case of the ACA, repealing it in its entirety would increase the deficit by billions, as MSNBC’s Ali Veshey explains this is a very dangerous road:
But McConnell’s plan to repeal the ACA in two years has also met its demise. As of late this morning three Republican senators, Susan Collins of Maine, Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, announced that they could not support the bill.
This is not to say that Trump and his wrecking crew won’t do everything they can to make sure the ACA doesn’t work.
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