WASHINGTON _ Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell does not have the votes necessary to pass a 2015 bill to repeal portions of the 2010 health law, the Kentucky Republican's "Plan B" following the failure of the GOP plan to overhaul the U.S. insurance markets.
Three Republicans _ Maine's Susan Collins, West Virginia's Shelley Moore Capito and Alaska's Lisa Murkowski _ have all stated their intentions to vote against a procedural motion that would allow McConnell to bring up a measure that would end the law's Medicaid expansion and repeal other portions of it starting in two years.
McConnell could only afford to lose the support of two Republicans.
"For months, I have expressed reservations about the direction of the bill to repeal and replace Obamacare," Capito said in a statement. "I cannot vote to repeal Obamacare without a replacement plan that addresses my concerns and the needs of West Virginians."
Murkowski told reporters on Tuesday she would vote no on a motion to proceed to the House-passed health care bill that McConnell said he would bring up in the coming days.
Collins told reporters that Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Chairman Lamar Alexander of Tennessee should begin to hold hearings to look at "what we can do to fix the many egregious flaw" in the health law.
The chamber might shift gears expected to try to work with Democrats to find a way to stabilize the individual market.
"We still have the same problems that we were trying to solve, so now this means that I suspect there will be discussions on a bipartisan bill," Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn of Texas told reporters on Tuesday. "To me that's unfortunate in a sense because I think the Democrats are strongly committed to Obamacare and are unwilling to admit the structural problems which create the problems we are having in the individual market today."
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