On the recordJuly 26, 2017
as the Senate continues the debate on the Republican healthcare bill, it seems the Republican majority is no clearer on what the endgame is because there is no good way out of this. Last night, the Senate Republican TrumpCare bill--after months of backroom negotiating and provisions aimed at all kinds of individual States and Members--died, with nine Republicans voting against the measure and many others who voted for it gritting their teeth unhappily. Later today, we will vote on a bill to repeal the Affordable Care Act without replacing it. I know that you, Mr. President, have championed that bill. Based on public comments and public criticism from the other side of the aisle, repeal without replace will fail as well. It is becoming clearer that in the end, the majority leader might push a much scaled-back version of repeal in the hopes of passing something--a so- called skinny repeal--just to get to conference. My colleagues, make no mistake about it, skinny repeal is equal to full repeal. It is a Trojan horse, designed to get the House and Senate into conference where a hard-right flank of the House Republicans, the Freedom Caucus, will demand full repeal or something very close to it.…
