By Dustin Rowles | Politics | July 25, 2017 |
By Dustin Rowles | Politics | July 25, 2017 |
With two Nos from Republicans (Murkowski and Collins), and the tie-breaker expected from Mike Pence, the Senate has voted yes on the motion to proceed on a health bill. What health bill? Nobody fucking knows. They’re going to work it out, and try to come up with a bill that 51 Senators can agree upon. The most likely possibility is the skinny repeal, which eliminates the employer and individual mandates, effectively killing Obamacare.
McCain was the 49th yes.
So it happened. McCain returned to the Senate to a standing ovation, and promptly voted to take away millions of people's healthcare.
— Joy Reid (@JoyAnnReid) July 25, 2017
No such bill has passed yet — I repeat: No bill has passed. This was just a vote on a motion to proceed to discuss the bill, which heretofore hasn’t passed. Heller, Rand, Lee, Moran, Johnson and Capito, etc., all voted on the motion to proceed, but that does not mean that they will ultimately agree to vote on the bill results from debate.
I certainly don't think everything's going to be ok. But McConnell is 2 Senators down. Can still pass, but a bit harder.
— Jon Favreau (@jonfavs) July 25, 2017
Capito and Heller were basically, like: “We voted yes because we want to see what they come up with,” which is bullshit because they’re not going to come up with anything different than they already have.
In the meantime, there were a lot of protestors, and several arrests, but reporters were not allowed to film it.
Reporters blocked from Senate halls where protesters being arrested, shouting, "Kill the bill!" Being told, "no photos. Delete your photos."
— Jennifer Bendery (@jbendery) July 25, 2017
We did get this, however:
Mood. pic.twitter.com/v1jzDnKvKX
— Pod Save America (@PodSaveAmerica) July 25, 2017
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Updated:
To his credit, after the vote, John McCain stood on the Senate floor and chastised both sides for not caring about anything other than “winning,” insisting that both sides should work together on this bill. He took a few veiled shots at Trump. He also said that he “will not vote for this bill” as it is written. He strongly criticized the process behind this bill, especially the secrecy. “That’s not going to work in the end, and it probably shouldn’t.”
“If this process ends in failure, which seems likely, then lets return to regular order … what have we got to lose by working together? … we are not the President’s subordinates, we are his equal.”
This:
John McCain champions democratic norms and Senate procedure after voting for a measure that broke all of them
— Jack Holmes (@jackholmes0) July 25, 2017
But:
Sure sounds like McCain just declared this repeal process dead. He, Collins and Murkowski can kill any bill produced by this process. https://t.co/ylymslo0bR
— Adam Jentleson (@AJentleson) July 25, 2017