President Trump on Saturday blasted Senate Republicans for giving up the fight on healthcare, saying that senators should demand another vote before any other legislation is considered.
“Unless the Republican Senators are total quitters, Repeal & Replace is not dead!” Trump tweeted Saturday.
“Demand another vote before voting on any other bill!” he added.
In other tweets, Trump threatened to end key payments to insurance companies under ObamaCare, a move that critics say would immediately cause higher insurance premiums.
“After seven years of ‘talking’ Repeal & Replace, the people of our great country are still being forced to live with imploding ObamaCare!” Trump wrote in another tweet Saturday.
“If a new HealthCare Bill is not approved quickly, BAILOUTS for Insurance Companies and BAILOUTS for Members of Congress will end very soon!” he added.
{mosads}
The effort to repeal and replace ObamaCare in the Senate collapsed early Friday morning when the “skinny repeal” of the Affordable Care Act failed in a 51-49 vote.
Three GOP senators broke from their party to join with all Democrats in the Senate to defeat the bill. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell told members of the upper chamber it was time to “move on” from healthcare legislation, and told Democrats that it was time to start offering solutions of their own.
“I regret that our efforts were simply not enough this time. Now, I imagine many of our colleagues on the other side are celebrating. Probably pretty happy about all this. But the American people are hurting, and they need relief,” McConnell said Friday.
Pointing to Democrats, he continued: “Now I think it’s appropriate to ask, what are their ideas? It’ll be interesting to see what they suggest as the way forward.”