In a stinging blow to President Donald Trump, U.S. Senate Republicans failed on Friday to dismantle Obamacare, falling short on a major campaign promise and perhaps ending a seven-year quest by their party to gut the healthcare law.
Voting in the early hours, three Republican senators, John McCain, Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski, crossed party lines to join Democrats in a dramatic 49 to 51 vote to reject a “skinny repeal” bill that would have killed some parts of Obamacare.
“This is clearly a disappointing moment,” Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said on an eerily quiet Senate floor right after the vote.
“The American people are going to regret that we couldn’t find a better way forward.”
The setback leaves Trump without a major legislative win after more than six months in power, despite Republicans controlling the White House, Senate and House.
It will also be a let-down for financial markets, which expected Trump to make rapid changes to healthcare, taxes and infrastructure spending.
“Three Republicans and 48 Democrats let the American people down. As I said from the beginning, let Obamacare implode, then deal. Watch!” Trump tweeted after the vote.
Trump has repeatedly berated congressional Republicans for being unable to overcome internal divisions to repeal Obamacare, but has offered no legislation himself, nor any clear guidance on what he would like to do about replacing the law.
The president has demanded at various times that Obamacare should be allowed to collapse on its own, that it should be repealed without replacement, and that it should be repealed and replaced.
The Affordable Care Act, approved by Democrats in 2010, is former Democratic President Barack Obama’s signature domestic achievement.
It provided health insurance to millions of previously uninsured Americans.
Republicans hold 52 seats in the 100-seat Senate.
McConnell, whose reputation as a master legislative tactician was on the line, could only afford to lose support from two Republican senators, with the tie-breaking vote to be cast by Vice President Mike Pence, who was on the Senate floor.
Republicans released the skinny bill just three hours before voting began.
It would have retroactively repealed the Obamacare penalty on individuals who do not purchase health insurance, repealed for eight years a penalty on certain employers who do not provide employees with insurance and repealed a medical device tax until 2020.
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated that if it became law, 15 million fewer Americans would be insured in 2018 than under existing law.
Democrats, and some Republicans, said the bill’s failure could present an opportunity for the two parties to work together to fix problematic areas of the Obamacare law without repealing it.
“We now have an opportunity to regroup and pull things together through an open and full committee process, bipartisan participation,” Murkowski told reporters.
Other Republicans said it was time to move on to other legislative priorities such as tax reform.
“This was a heavy lift. We should have taken our time. We should have first turned to tax reform and that’s what we’ll do now,” Republican Senator Ron Johnson told reporters.
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