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Donald Trump Says Senate Let America Down With Its Health Care Vote

Donald Trump Says Senate Let America Down With Its Health Care Vote
U.S. President Donald Trump attends a
Carlos Barria / Reuters
U.S. President Donald Trump attends a

President Donald Trump reacted to the Senate vote on a “skinny” repeal of the Affordable Care Act by saying that the lawmakers who voted against the bill “let the American people down.”

Senators voted on a less-than-desirable bill with hopes that the House would agree to go into a conference committee to help iron out the details of a better bill. The move follows seven years of GOP promises to repeal Obamacare.

The bill went down with a 49-51 vote after three Republican senators, including John McCain of Arizona, voted against it. Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska also voted no.

Trump has repeatedly put pressure on Republicans to repeal Obamacare, saying earlier this week he thinks they “have not done their job” on the issue. He jokingly threatened Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price while speaking at the annual National Scout Jamboree on Monday, saying he’d fire Price if he couldn’t “start our path toward killing this horrible thing known as Obamacare.”

President Donald Trump
Win McNamee via Getty Images
President Donald Trump

Trump has repeatedly promised to replace Obamacare with “something terrific” while offering few details on what that something could be.

The president once even argued that lawmakers should “let Obamacare fail,” despite some studies that have signaled the insurance markets are stabilizing, though many problems remain.

“We’re not going to own it. I’m not going to own it. I can tell you the Republicans are not going to own it. We’ll let Obamacare fail, and then the Democrats are going to come to us,” Trump said last week.

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