Senate Rejects Slimmed-Down Obamacare Repeal as McCain Votes No<br />Representative Mark Walker, Republican of North Carolina<br />and the chairman of the conservative Republican Study Committee, said he favored a conference, calling the bill “ugly to the bone.”<br />And Representative Mark Meadows, Republican of North Carolina and the chairman of the hard-line Freedom Caucus, said<br />that for many conservatives, it would be a “nonstarter” to send President Trump a bill that has “gotten so skinny that it doesn’t resemble a repeal.”<br />But senators had at least some reason to be nervous.<br />“The reality, however, is that repealing and replacing Obamacare still ultimately requires the Senate to produce 51 votes for an actual plan.”<br />But Mr. Ryan left open the possibility that if a compromise measure had failed in<br />the Senate, the House could still pass the stripped-down Senate health bill.<br />Representative Chris Collins, Republican of New York and a key ally of Mr. Trump, said the stripped-down bill would be “better than nothing” if it became apparent<br />that the Senate did not have the votes for a more ambitious bill.<br />“I’m not going to vote for a bill that is terrible policy<br />and horrible politics just because we have to get something done,” Mr. Graham said at a news conference, calling the stripped-down bill a “disaster” and a “fraud” as a replacement for the health law.<br />WASHINGTON — The Senate in the early hours of Friday morning rejected a new, scaled-down Republican plan to repeal parts of the Affordable Care Act, derailing the Republicans’ seven-year campaign to dismantle President Barack Obama’s signature health care law<br />and dealing a huge political setback to President Trump.
