Schumer: Republican health care measure has ‘at best a 50-50 chance’ of passage.
The Latest on the Senate Republican health care bill (all times local) :
10: 45 a.m.
Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer says Senate passage of the Republican bill to replace former President Barack Obama’s health law is too close to call.
He told ABC’s “This Week” the GOP has “at best, a 50-50 chance.”
In the narrowly divided Senate, defections from just three of the 52 Republican senators would doom the legislation.
Schumer says Democrats have made clear they would be willing to work with Republicans to pass a Senate bill if they agree to drop a repeal of the Affordable Care Act and instead work to improve it.
Schumer described the GOP proposal as “devastating” to the middle class and “that’s what’s making it so hard for them to pass it.”
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10: 30 a.m.
Sen. Susan Collins of Maine says she thinks getting the votes needed in the Senate this week to pass a Republican bill to replace the Affordable Care Act could be very difficult.
The moderate Republican says she has “very serious concerns” about the proposed legislation but hasn’t yet taken a position on it. She cited in part provisions that she believes could cut Medicaid more than the House version.
So far five Republican senators have announced their opposition. Defections from just three of the Senate’s 52 Republicans would doom the legislation.
Collins says another seven to eight senators including herself remain troubled about the possible Medicaid cuts.
She says she intends to wait for a Congressional Budget Office analysis before making a decision.
Collins spoke on ABC’s “This Week.”
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9 a.m.
President Donald Trump says he doesn’t think congressional Republicans are “that far off” on passing a health overhaul to replace what he’s calling “the dead carcass of Obamacare.”
Trump says he believes his majority party is “going to get there.”
But that optimism runs counter to the public opposition of five Republican senators so far to the Senate GOP plan that would scuttle much of former President Barack Obama’s health law.
Unless those holdouts can be swayed, their numbers are more than enough to torpedo the measure developed in private by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and deliver a bitter defeat for the president.
Trump tells “Fox and Friends” that “we’ve a very good plan.”
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