White House press secretary Sean Spicer on Wednesday called on the GOP senators who supported a 2015 bill repealing Obamacare’s major provisions to work with the White House on a new plan to dismantle the healthcare law.
“Those individuals all voted in 2015 to repeal Obamacare. They talked about how bad it was and the concerns that they had for the reasons that I laid out, that it wasn’t giving people the affordability nor the accessibility that they were promised,” Spicer told CBN in an interview.
“We would hope that those same people, when given a chance now, if they don’t want to vote for this comprehensive approach to repeal and replace, would at least work with us on the repeal bill, something they all voted for in 2015, and then give us two or three years to come up with a more comprehensive replace bill,” he continued.
Republican Sens. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Rob Portman of Ohio, Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia, and Susan Collins of Maine came out against a plan to revive a 2015 bill that repealed Obamacare’s major provisions and gave Republicans two years to draft a replacement plan. Three of those senators, Murkowski, Capito, and Portman, backed the bill in 2015, while Collins opposed it.
Spicer questioned why the three senators would oppose a bill they’ve supported in the past.
“It’s something that they’ve always supported,” Spicer said. “They supported it a couple years ago. We can at least default to that. But the president is still committed to trying to do both repeal and replace.”
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell decided to bring back the 2015 bill, which passed both chambers of Congress but was vetoed by former President Barack Obama, after the Senate’s comprehensive bill both repealing and replacing the healthcare law died earlier this week.
But McConnell’s new strategy was ill-fated — just hours after changing his plans, Murkowski, Capito and Collins said they would vote against a motion to proceed to debate on the 2015 bill.
President Trump is still attempting to rally support from his fellow Republicans for a healthcare bill, and the president hosted GOP senators for a lunch at the White House on Wednesday.
“Inaction is not an option, and frankly, I don’t think we should leave town unless we have a health insurance plan,” Trump said.
