Mitch McConnell: GOP health-care bill 'will not be successful'


Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) acknowledged Monday night that his health-care proposal is in a death spiral, and he said his new plan is to repeal ObamaCare with a two-year delay, with no replacement plan.
"Regretfully, it is now apparent that the effort to repeal and immediately replace the failure of ObamaCare will not be successful," McConnell said in a statement. "So, in the coming days, the Senate will vote to take up the House bill with the first amendment in order being what a majority in the Senate has already supported in 2015 and that was vetoed by then-President Obama: a repeal of ObamaCare with a two-year delay to provide for a stable transition period to a patient-centered health-care system that gives Americans access to quality, affordable care."
Two GOP senators, Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) and Sen. Jerry Moran (R-Kan.), announced Monday they would not support the motion to proceed on the current version of the Better Care Reconciliation Act, joining Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), leaving McConnell without the necessary number of votes to pass the GOP health-care proposal. President Trump called on Republicans to repeal ObamaCare now and "work on a new health-care plan that will start from a clean slate."
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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.
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