Rand Paul Says Senate Health-Care Bill Doesn’t Have The Votes
by Tyler Durden
ZeroHedge.com
Jul 16, 2017
Senator Rand Paul took to the Sunday talk shows again this week to discuss the fate of Senate Health care bill 2.0., and in news that will surprise almost no one who’s been following along, the conservative Kentucky senator said Sunday on Fox and Friends that he doesn’t think Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has the votes to pass the healthcare bill in its current form, according to the Hill.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell released a new version of a healthcare plan earlier this week, which, among other things, incorporates demands from Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) to allow insurers to sell low-cost, skimpier plans all in an effort to draw conservative support for the new bill.
Yet apparently the revisions weren’t enough to win over Paul, one of the senate’s most dedicated conservatives.
“I don’t think right now he does,” Paul, a vocal critic of the Senate’s healthcare plan, said on “Fox News Sunday.”
Paul, who said that dozens of Republicans won thanks to their campaigning against Obamacare, again floated the idea of first repealing, and later replacing it. There is significant resistance to that plan among other senators, including Republicans, though the White House has indicated President Trump is open to it.
“What I’ve suggested to the president … if this comes to an impasse, I think if the president jumps into the fray and says ‘Look guys, you promised to repeal it, let’s just repeal what we can agree to,” Paul said.
“And then we can continue to try to fix, replace or whatever has to happen afterwards,” he continued.
Republicans should try to repeal as many of the taxes, regulations and mandates as possible, Paul said.
Paul was later pressed on whether he would rather keep ObamaCare than pass the current GOP’s healthcare legislation. He said that the current system is “terrible.”
“The death spiral of ObamaCare is unwinding the whole system, and it will continue to unwind, but I don’t think Republicans should put their name on this key part of ObamaCare,” Paul said.
“And then we’re going to be blamed for the rest of the unwinding of ObamaCare. It’s a really bad political strategy and it’s not going to fix the problem.”
The Rest…HERE
