June 27, 2017 12:36 PM UTC

McConnell Bows To Inevitable--Trumpcare Vote Delayed

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• by: Colorado Pols

UPDATE: 9NEWS’ Kyle Clark is picking up what we’re throwing down:

So there’s time for a town hall after all! #copolitics https://t.co/Liv5yCSLuu

— Kyle Clark (@KyleClark) June 27, 2017

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CNN reporting, so much for that:

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell will delay the vote on the Republican leadership’s health care bill until after the July 4 recess, two sources told CNN.

McConnell told GOP senators that he wants to make changes to the bill, get a new Congressional Budget Office score and have a vote after the holiday.

A White House official and a GOP aide on the Hill told CNN that White House chief of staff Reince Priebus and Vice President Mike Pence invited all Republican senators to White House on Tuesday afternoon.

Republican leadership, along with Pence, had sought earlier to woo members of their own party into supporting the fragile health care bill behind closed doors Tuesday, as a fifth senator came out against voting for a procedural step to advance their plans to repeal and replace Obamacare.

We’re awaiting President Donald Trump’s Twitter freakout! Stand by for reax from Colorado electeds–many of whom we expect are breathing a sigh of relief, even if they can’t say so. At the top of that list may or may not be Sen. Cory Gardner, who now should have plenty of time to meet with his constituents back home to justify the bill he waxed positive about with the Denver Post’s Mark Matthews yesterday:

Gardner spoke more positively than not about the measure in a brief interview Monday on Capitol Hill.

“Over the weekend I had conversations with CEOs (including at least one official at) Blue Cross Blue Shield, who said their support for the bill is robust,” Gardner said of the health insurance giant… [Pols emphasis]

The degree to which Gardner is a true swing vote on the legislation, however, is a matter of debate.

The first-term senator was among 13 Senate Republicans tapped to help craft the bill — though Gardner contends he didn’t see the full text until last Thursday. His position as chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee also puts him in the upper tier of GOP leadership and close to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who took the lead in writing the legislation.

Back at the ranch as our readers know, support for the bill is not “robust,” and that is the reason why the vote scheduled for this week has now been unceremoniously cancelled. What changes to the bill that may be forthcoming before the next attempt at a vote are of course unknown, but the simultaneous need to satisfy conservatives who say the bill doesn’t cut enough and politically vulnerable “moderates” who say it cuts too much doesn’t bode well. In fact, it never did.

We are watching the #1 agenda item of the party now in complete control of the federal government, not to mention the stated top priority of Colorado’s highest-ranking Republican lawmaker, crash and burn.