The Republicans’ Hail Mary attempt to repeal Obamacare without Democratic support appears to be doomed once again.



Arizona Sen. John McCain announced Friday he will not support the Graham-Cassidy repeal bill, followed by Maine Sen. Susan Collins on Monday.

Along with Collins and McCain, Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul has repeatedly declared he will vote against the bill. Those three would be enough to kill the bill on their own, but Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, who opposed the last repeal bill in July, is also a likely no vote. And Texas Sen. Ted Cruz said Sunday that "right now, they don't have my vote" on the bill, though he added: "I want to be a yes."

Collins cited cuts to Medicaid and fears about higher premiums and weakened protections for people with pre-existing conditions as the reasons for her opposition to the bill.



Collins called the bill "deeply flawed" and said that sweeping changes to the American health care system can't be done well in such a compressed time frame. She also said she hoped that bipartisan negotiations in the Senate to stabilize Obamacare and "fix the very real flaws" in the law — which had been put on hold — would resume.

As he did in July, McCain indicated he was voting against the bill because of the broken process. The bill was introduced only last week and set to be voted on before the end of the month with no full analysis of its effects from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office and only one committee hearing to study it.

“As I have repeatedly stressed, health care reform legislation ought to be the product of regular order in the Senate,” McCain said in a statement.

“We should not be content to pass health care legislation on a party-line basis, as Democrats did when they rammed Obamacare through Congress in 2009. If we do so, our success could be as short-lived as theirs when the political winds shift, as they regularly do.”