Since Trump took the seat as President at the top of 2017, the Republican Party has arguably been inching toward opposition within itself, particularly when it comes to healthcare reform. The only unifying opinion the Party currently shares is that the Affordable Care Act should be repealed and replaced. Some GOP members have suggested that Congress should act now and apologize later, while others have urged for a solid replacement plan in place before pulling the plug on the ACA.
The cacophony of opinions among GOP members ultimately came to a head once Trump’s amended American Health Care Act reached the House for an approval vote and moved onto Senate. Upon reaching the Senate floor, the differences in approaches between moderate and conservative Republicans Party are at a crossroad. According to Bloomberg Politics, one proposal is to table the ACA repeal until 2020.
The reason may be that an absence of current movement in the Senate on healthcare will please the entire Party, particularly given the absence of the requisite 50 Senators to approve of any plan. Conflicts of opinion among the GOP include Medicaid Expansion, the elimination of ACA-mandated taxes, subsidies for funding coverage through the Health Insurance Marketplace, as well as how to deal with the staggering number of uninsured over a decade should the AHCA be approved in its current form.
It is not clear whether the delay in a repeal would give the Senate enough time to draft a whole new proposed bill that will allow GOP lawmakers to finely tune it for majority approval. More importantly, many Senate seats are up by 2020 and so is the seat for President. Republican control of White House, Senate and House of Representatives may not exist by then.
