President Trump offered a dramatic, animated, and, at times, inaccurate speech Monday in an effort to pressure Senate Republicans into voting in favor of his beleaguered healthcare plan.“They [Democrats] say, death death — well, Obamacare is death,” Trump said, standing in front of a group of children he identified as victims of Obamacare, which he described as a “big, fat, ugly lie.”The president also claimed that, “for the past 17 years Obamacare has wreaked havoc on the lives of innocent hardworking Americans,” even though Obamacare was signed into law in 2010.The Senate will take a procedural vote Tuesday to decide whether to even continue forward with the healthcare debate, an unusual step at this juncture because it is still unclear whether the Republican leadership will seek to repeal and replace Obamacare, or just repeal it.“We don’t have a clear determination as to what it is we would be voting for so it is very difficult for me to say ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to proceed. We are not certain what we would be proceeding to,” Alaska Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski said last week.Two prior attempts at repealing and replacing Obamacare failed before even reaching the preliminary vote, due to lack of support from both Democrats and Republicans.During his speech Monday, Trump urged Republicans in the Senate to vote in favor of the bill, saying it was their last chance to fulfill their campaign promises and overturn the “disastrous law.”Republicans currently hold a 52-48 majority in the Senate, meaning they can only have two people defect and still have the number of votes necessary to advance a bill. With Senator John McCain of Arizona in the hospital, and Senator Susan Collins of Maine a firm no on any vote that would repeal Obamacare without a replacement, Trump will need the rest of Senate Republicans to present a united front for anything to go forward.“So far, Senate Republicans have not done their job in ending the Obamacare nightmare,” Trump said. “We need virtually every vote from Republicans.”
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