President Trump: 'Let Obamacare Fail'

WASHINGTON, DC — President Donald Trump said Tuesday he's deeply "disappointed" by the collapse of the GOP effort to rewrite former President Barack Obama's health care law. He says it's time to "Let Obamacare fail," adding, "I'm not going to own it."

Letting Obamacare fail will push Democrats to negotiate, he said.

On Monday night, four GOP senators had officially come out against the party leadership's Better Care Reconciliation Act, essentially killing its chances of becoming law. Trump said he doesn't fault Majority Leader Mitch McConnell for failing to pass the bill, which would have significantly scaled back federal government spending on health.

After the weekly closed-door GOP lunch attended by Vice President Mike Pence, McConnell said Tuesday that the Senate will vote "sometime in the near future" on repealing Obamacare outright. However, the "repeal" option really means defunding Obamacare while leaving its regulations in place. Previously, the CBO has estimated that this approach could cause 32 million people to lose their health insurance.

But opposition on Tuesday from Republican Sens. Shelley Moore Capito, of West Virginia, Lisa Murkowski, of Alaska, and Susan Collins, of Maine, scuttled the simple repeal plan as well.

Even if the Republicans delay the "repeal" plan by two years, many observers fear this act would greatly destabilize the individual health insurance market.

"Full repeal with no replacement will cause markets to fail," said Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy, a Democrat. "No insurer will stay in an exchange that is disappearing in 24 months."

"This has been a very, very challenging experience for all of us," McConnell said as he urged senators to advance to debate the repeal-only bill. But this move faces opposition from even from outside Congress.

A bipartisan group of nearly a dozen governors has come out against the repeal- and-replace effort, saying in a statement Tuesday that millions would be left uninsured. The best option, it said, is a bipartisan approach and a fix to the unstable insurance markets.

Republicans on the statement included Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval, Maryland's Larry Hogan, Massachusetts' Charlie Baker and Ohio's John Kasich. Independent Gov. Bill Walker of Alaska also signed.

Watch: The Senate Is Now Going To Vote On A Clean Repeal Of Obamacare

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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