Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell holds a press conference on health care at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, DC. December 16, 2009.
Photo by Win McNamee for Getty Images
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell announced on Tuesday that the senate will not vote this week on repealing Obamacare. The bill will hit the senate floor some time after the July 4 recess.
The development is a new wrinkle in the story of the GOP's health plan. The current version is a minor rewrite of the American Health Care Act (AHCA), which passed the Republican-controlled house despite vocal opposition, into dismal polling and insults from President Donald Trump. The senate's plan retains the house's massive cuts in Medicaid to fund tax breaks for wealthy Americans, and according to the CBO score released on Monday, would result in 22 million fewer Americans uninsured compared to Obamacare.
Five moderate and conservative Republicans publicly declared their opposition to the bill, with many more expressing reservations.
However, the bill is far from dead — the House's bill was pulled moments before a vote due to a lack of support, only for an amended version to pass several weeks later.