The Washington Post ripped Republican lawmakers for trying to push through a healthcare bill and said they should look at the delay in the Senate vote as an opportunity to work with Democrats on a compromise solution.
"Republican senators are regrouping after Majority Leader Mitch McConnell put off a vote on his Obamacare repeal-and-replace bill," the newspaper said in an editorial. "The stumble was for the better.
"The bill was drafted in secret. Not a single hearing was held. Democrats were not consulted. With only a single week afforded to absorb the legislation's contents before a vote, the timetable was absurd. Mr. McConnell's attempt to jam it through stank of legislative malpractice and hypocrisy.
"Republicans should treat this as an opportunity to step away from the brink and reevaluate their foolhardy push to rush through an ill-wrought overhaul of the nation's healthcare system without any input from the other side."
The Post said GOP lawmakers had tried to advance coverage reductions and tax cuts that most of the public would not accept.
"The Congressional Budget Office has repeatedly exposed these ideas to be abjectly cruel, finding that they would result in north of 20 million more people uninsured in a decade, as government health-care assistance was rolled back to finance a large tax cut for the wealthy," The Post said.
And the paper noted McConnell has reportedly said moving forward with the GOP healthcare bill would be better than negotiating with Democrats.
"What does it say about the Republican Party that even this bill is more appealing than reaching out to moderates on the other side of the aisle?" the paper said.
"If both sides sat down in good faith, there would be a wide range of possible compromises.
"What should be off the table, permanently, is the Senate's bad bill. The unilateral effort to cram it through must end."
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