參議院未能成功廢除奧巴馬醫保法
The U.S. Senate failed early Friday to enact a partial repeal of the seven-year old Affordable Care Act (ACA), also known as Obamacare. Three Republican lawmakers -- John McCain of Arizona, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine -- voted with Democrats in the 49-51 defeat of the Republican-led repeal effort.
President Donald Trump took to his Twitter account shortly after the vote to admonish the Republicans who sided with the Democrats. "3 Republicans and 48 Democrats let the American people down. As I said from the beginning, let ObamaCare implode, then deal. Watch!," the president wrote.
The so-called "skinny repeal" legislation would, among other things, have ended the requirements that most Americans buy health insurance or pay a penalty, and that companies with 50 or more employees provide coverage to their workers.
Republican senators have wanted for seven years to do away with Obamacare, the signature domestic legislative achievement of former President Barack Obama. About 20 million Americans gained health care insurance under Obamacare. The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office estimated in a study of the "skinny repeal" measure that 16 million Americans would lose their coverage and premiums would increase by 20 percent.
Republican leaders saw the the scaled-down bid as a way of honoring their campaign promises to repeal and replace Obamacare. Conservative lawmakers want to gut as much as possible of Obamacare, while more moderate Republicans are worried that such changes could affect health insurance coverage for millions of poorer Americans.
Earlier this week, Senate Republicans failed twice to overturn the ACA - either by repealing the law outright or repealing it and at the same time replacing it with a new version.
Of the two failed votes earlier in the week, nine Republicans first joined all the Democrats in rejecting a proposed replacement health care bill crafted by Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. The second effort called for outright repeal of Obamacare in two years' time, during which period Congress would be expected to agree on replacement legislation; that was rejected by a similar margin, with seven Republicans joining the unified Democratic minority bloc.美國國會參議院部分廢除實施7年的奧巴馬醫保法的努力星期五凌晨以失敗告終。三位共和黨參議員，亞利桑那州參議員麥凱恩、阿拉斯加州參議員穆爾科斯基和緬因州參議員柯林斯跟民主黨人一起投了反對票，最終以49票贊成，51票反對的結果擊敗了共和黨人廢除奧巴馬醫保法的努力。
投票結束後不久，美國總統川普在推特上對倒戈的共和黨人提出批評。川普寫道：“三個共和黨人和48個民主黨人辜負了美國人民的期望。正像我一開始所說的，讓奧巴馬醫保法自行崩潰，然後再着手解決。等着瞧吧！”
這份所謂的“簡化版”議案將不再要求大多數美國民衆購買醫保否則面臨罰款，也不再要求僱員超過50人的公司爲員工提供醫保。
七年來，共和黨參議員一直希望能夠廢除奧巴馬醫保法。大約2000萬美國人通過奧巴馬醫保法獲得了醫療保險。無黨派的國會預算辦公室對“簡化版”議案的研究估算，會有1600萬美國人失去保險，保費也將上漲20%。
共和黨領袖希望藉助這一“簡化版”議案來兌現其廢除奧巴馬醫保法的競選承諾。保守派議員們想要儘可能多地去除奧巴馬醫保法的內容，但一些較溫和的共和黨議員則擔心這些變動可能會終止或限制政府爲數百萬較貧窮的民衆提供醫保。
本週早些時候，參議院共和黨人推翻奧巴馬醫保法的努力兩度受挫，不論是徹底廢除奧巴馬醫保，還是以新政策取而代之，都無法得到足夠支持。
第一次是參議院9名共和黨人和全數民主黨人反對由多數黨領袖麥康奈爾起草的新醫保法案，此後，對於兩年內全面廢除，並在此期間出臺新法案的意見，有7名共和黨人和民主黨人一起投了反對票。
