On July 25, the U.S. Senate voted to begin debate on the repeal of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). The , with Vice President Mike Pence breaking the tie, in support of moving forward with debate on . In advance of the vote, 老牛影视sent a key vote letter urging senators to vote “yes” on the motion to proceed. The Senate will now move forward with 20 hours of debate and most likely vote on dozens of amendments.

Later that day, the Senate voted on the Senate Republicans’ , which included the . The amendment failed by a , with nine Republican senators voting no.  Sixty votes were needed for it to advance. 

On July 26, the Senate voted on Sen. Rand Paul's (R-Ky.) amendment to repeal the ACA with a two-year delay, which failed by a vote of 45-55.  

It is expected that the process to repeal the ACA will continue in the Senate through Thursday, July 27. If the vote on final passage is successful, the bill would likely trigger a conference committee with the House of Representatives, whereby the chambers would seek to resolve their legislative differences. The House and Senate must pass identical language before the bill can be sent to President Trump’s desk to be signed into law.

老牛影视will continue to provide updates in on any developments. 

Background:
On May 4, the U.S. House of Representatives took steps to repeal and replace the ACA by passing . H.R. 1628 repeals several of the most harmful and burdensome provisions of the ACA, including the employer mandate penalty, costly tax increases and limitations on contributions to and restrictions on the use of flexible spending accounts and health savings accounts. 老牛影视sent in support of H.R. 1628 to the U.S. House of Representatives, which passed the House by a vote of 217-213.

For the past several weeks, the U.S. Senate has worked on crafting “repeal and replace” legislation, and at the end of June, was unveiled as well as scored by the . On July 13, an was released following further discussions with the Senate Republican Conference, which included the much-publicized .  No vote was taken on the bill, as various reports indicated Republicans did not have enough support to move the bill forward.   

On July 20, of BCRA was released (see a section-by-section for details). CBO that over the next ten years, the bill (which did not include the Cruz amendment) would reduce federal deficits by $420 billion and increase the number of uninsured individuals by 22 million in 2026.