Health Tips

The latest attempt by Senate Republicans to "repeal and replace" Obamacare��the �skinny� plan��failed early this morning on a vote of 49-51.

The deciding vote came from John McCain (AZ), joined by Republican Senators Collins (ME) and Murkowski (AK).

Trying to pass the �skinny� bill was a fool�s errand. How did McConnell think he was going to do any better bringing 240 House Republicans�

Three strikes and you're out.

On Monday, Senate Republicans approved proceeding to debate on "repealing and replacing" Obamacare by a vote of 50-50-1, with Vice President Mike Pence casting the deciding vote.

Strike One
Yesterday, Senate Republicans failed to approve the bill they had been working on for over a month, which included the Cruz amendment that would have bifurcated the individual

The Senate Republican Obamacare "repeal and replace" legislation��just like the House version��was an awful bill. Individual health insurance costs wouldn't have gone down they would have gone up and both bills would have screwed a lot of low-income people. The latest Cruz amendment bifurcating the market with the sick in one place and the healthy in another was the most cynical kind of public

The individual health insurance market is becoming more unstable as last year's rate increases are beginning to take their toll on the health of the risk pools��particularly among the almost half of the consumers in the market that are not eligible for subsidies.

The Trump administration is making an already bad situation worse.

President Trump is wrong when he says the system will suddenly "

I've been saying for years that Obamacare will never be "repealed and replaced," but it will have to be fundamentally fixed, and that fix will inevitably have to be bipartisan.

But with the developments of the past week, I learned something new: Trump and the Republican leadership are ideologically closer to most Democrats than they are to their own far right wing in the House and Senate.

See

See my comments on CNBC