Washington, Jul 11 (EFE).- The leader of the Republican majority in the US Senate announced Tuesday that the chamber’s August recess would start two weeks later than usual as GOP senators seek agreement on a bill to repeal and replace the 2010 Affordable Care Act, better known as ObamaCare.
The GOP-controlled House of Representatives has already passed a health-care bill and President Donald Trump has been insisting that the Senate complete work on the issue before going into recess.
In fact, the president has suggest that the Senate scrap ObamaCare immediately and take up the question of a replacement later.
“To provide more time to complete action on important legislative items and process nominees that have been stalled by a lack of cooperation from our friends across the aisle, the Senate will delay the start of the August recess until the third week of August,” Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said.
Republicans spent weeks behind closed doors putting together a proposal, but the number of GOP senators who rejected the draft as either overly timid or too harsh forced the leadership to go back to the drawing board.McConnell said he is planning a vote next week on the revised plan.
Yet the internal Republican debate has grown more complicated with the introduction by Sens. Ted Cruz and Mike Lee of an amendment that calls for repealing ObamaCare and then allowing insurance companies to sell low-cost plans that don’t meet existing standards for coverage.
The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office estimated that more than 20 million people would stand to lose health insurance under the original Republican Senate bill.