McConnell hoped to bring the Better Care Reconciliation Act to the Senate floor for debate and a vote this week, so public outcry during next week’s congressional holiday wouldn’t weaken senators’ resolve to repeal the ACA.
But after senators from Maine, Nevada, Utah and Wisconsin all said they would vote against a motion to begin debate, McConnell pulled the bill for continued intraparty negotiations. The announcement came during a closed-door GOP lunch, according to multiple reports.
The Senate has 15 more working days before its long August recess. GOP leadership has said that the end of July is the absolute deadline for the bill.
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Mara Lee covers developments in health care policy in Congress and around Washington. This is her second time covering the Hill. In a previous life, she covered Midwestern delegations for Scripps and Gannett newspapers in Indiana and Michigan. Over her 20-year-plus-career, she’s spent more time outside the Beltway, both as a business reporter for The Hartford Courant and nine years in Ohio, mostly at the Dayton Daily News. She won an award for coverage of Oxycontin addiction Ohio in 2003, as well as for Census, business and breaking news coverage in Ohio and Connecticut. She’s a Virginia native, and graduated from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. Twitter handle: MaraRhymesSarah