Republican Sen. Dean Heller said Friday that he’s “pleased” the Republican effort to repeal portions of Obamacare ultimately failed.
“I feel real pleased at the way this thing turned out and we’re turning the page now to tax reform” the Nevada senator told a local CNN affiliate, KRNV, of the failed Obamacare repeal bill.
.@SenDeanHeller is "pleased" with the defeat of the Senate's health care bill … but he voted for it in the first place #nvsen pic.twitter.com/WZqMqi61d7
— American Bridge 21st Century (@American_Bridge) August 11, 2017
Heller, who voted in favor of the so-called “skinny repeal bill” that failed to pass the Senate by a narrow margin of votes last month, had spoken out against earlier efforts to repeal the health-care law. Heller worried aloud that repealing Obamacare in total would mean his home state of Nevada would lose federal subsidies to support the state’s Medicaid program it expanded under Obamacare — despite numerous warnings that doing so is unsustainable.
“I cannot support a piece of legislation that takes away insurance from tens of millions of Americans and hundreds of thousands of Nevadans,” he said during a news conference in Nevada in June.
Heller responded Friday afternoon by tweeting that he was pleased with his vote in favor of repealing aspects of Obamacare, not the bill’s failure to pass.
Fake news: I’m pleased with my vote to repeal Obamacare, a bill the @POTUS wanted to sign and @DannyTarkanian criticized. https://t.co/nz16Es4rTo
— Dean Heller (@DeanHeller) August 11, 2017
Heller, who barely won his Senate seat in 2012, is facing an uphill battle in his campaign to get reelected for another term in 2018.
