WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - The US Senate has started debating President Donald Trump's top legislative priority to repeal and replace Obamacare with a Republican health care plan.
Tuesday, the Senate agreed to allow the debate on health care legislation reform to go forward with the help of Vice President Mike Pence's tie-breaking vote (51-50).
Senator John McCain, who has been resting after being diagnosed with brain tumour, returned to Capitol Hill to save Trump from another embarassment. His vote ensured that the Republicans have 50 votes to move forward on legislation to repeal the Affordable Care Act.
Trump thanked the Arizona senator for playing 'such a vital role' in the vote, while Mark R. Warner (D-VA) warned that the vote will have very real and disastrous consequences for millions of Americans.
But Tuesday night, the first amendment - to repeal and replace Obamacare - failed to pass as nine moderate Republicans joined all Democrats on a 43-57 vote that effectively killed the measure.
Dozens of other amendments are expected to be put to vote this week.
In a 15 minute long speech in the Senate, McCain said although he voted for the motion to proceed to allow debate to continue and amendments to be offered, he 'will not vote for the bill as it is today'.
The Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee pointedly chided his party's leaders for crafting a health care bill in private and attempting to jam it past any resistance.
He blamed the Republicans by saying that in an effort to repeal and replace Obamacare, 'All we've managed to do is make more popular a policy that wasn't very popular when we started trying to get rid of it'.
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