@SenatorLankford: Healthcare vote is not about who “won” or “lost”

Congressional Documents & Publications

Senator James Lankford (R-OK) wrote about his frustration with last night's Obamacare repeal failure on his Facebook page and Twitter this afternoon:

"As many of you know, a last ditch effort to repeal and replace Obamacare in the Senate failed by a vote of 49-51 very early this morning. I'm deeply disappointed that the Senate was unable to get the job done and improve healthcare for millions of people. Healthcare insurance premiums have increased 76 percent on average for Oklahoma residents on the federal exchange this year. For years, I and my staff have worked to develop solutions to our national healthcare crisis. After months of work and debate, we were one vote short.

Today, some media pundits have focused on who won and who lost over the healthcare vote. This reaction is frustrating to me. This debate is not about what politician won and who lost or what political party won and which party lost, this healthcare conversation is about people's lives.

First, we must realize that many Americans have been helped by Obamacare, but also admit that many Americans have been hurt by the law. This issue is complicated and is not as easy as some make it seem. Second, the missing part of today's reaction has been the families that can no longer afford health insurance because their rates have increased over 200%, both in states that expanded Medicaid and states that did not... The doctors who have taken early retirement rather than live their lives filling out new forms and taking lower reimbursement rates... The more than 6 million people who pay a healthcare tax penalty because they cannot afford coverage, or simply don't want to be forced by the government to purchase something... The hundreds of counties in America where there is one or no insurance carrier left.

None of those realities changed last night, and none of those things occurred because of a Republican plan--they were already spiraling out-of-control because of the Affordable Care Act. For every good thing that Obamacare did for those in poverty, it also created some adverse consequences for other Americans. In D.C., healthcare became a hyper partisan fight, instead of a mission to work together to get healthcare for people at rates they can afford. The losers in the failed vote last night were not politicians in Washington DC, they were people sitting at kitchen tables across America trying to make sense of the chaos of their finances and their government." -Senator James Lankford (R-OK)