The U.S. Senate is currently debating the Republican health care bill, and several amendments are under consideration to improve upon it. U.S. Senator Rand Paul (R-Kentucky) offered an amendment that proposed a partial repeal Obamacare instead of just tweaking it. Senate rules prohibited a complete repeal. The amendment was a clean repeal would have forced a bipartisan solution during a two-year transition period before it when into effect.
Republicans have promised repeal for years, and most Republican Senators campaigned on and voted on several times while President Obama was in office.
The measure failed 45 to 55 in a Republican majority Senate on Wednesday afternoon. Nine Republican Senators voted no. Here are the Senators who voted no.
- U.S. Senator Lamar Alexander (R-Tennessee)
- U.S. Senator Shelley Moore Capito (R-West Virginia)
- U.S. Senator Susan Collins (R-Maine)
- U.S. Senator Dean Heller (R-Nevada)
- U.S. Senator John McCain (R-Arizona)
- U.S. Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska)
- U.S. Senator Rob Portman (R-Ohio)
Heller is up for reelection in 2018. Alexander, Capito, Collins are not up for reelection until 2020. Portman and Murkowski are not up for reelection until 2022. McCain just discovered he has glioblastoma, an aggressive brain tumor, is unlikely to finish his term which ends in 2022.
