Senate delays health care vote – will Obamacare ever be repealed?

Senate Republicans are delaying a vote on their new health care bill because they know not enough senators support the Better Care Reconciliation Act for it to pass.

The vote was scheduled for Thursday, but Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has postponed the vote until after the Independence Day recess.

When the Senate’s health care plan was first unveiled last week, four conservative senators released a joint statement saying they could not vote for the bill. Sens. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), Mike Lee (R-Utah), Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), Ted Cruz (R-Texas), and  said in the statement that “it does not appear this draft as written will accomplish the most important promise that we made to Americans: to repeal Obamacare and lower their health care costs.” Senator Dean Heller (R-Nev.) has also added his voice to the opposition.

The vote delay comes shortly after the Congressional Budget Office released a report estimating the plan would result in 22 million fewer people having health insurance. Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) announced that she could not support the bill in its current form after the CBO report.

In the big picture, moderate Republicans are unhappy that the plan doesn’t spend enough money, while conservative Republicans refuse to vote for a bill that won’t actually fix any of the health care system’s problems. President Donald Trump seems to think that Obamacare should be allowed to "explode" on its own.

On Wednesday’s “The Morning Blaze with Doc Thompson,” Doc Thompson and Kal Elsebai wondered if Obamacare will ever be repealed or if the broken system will just stay in place until it collapses – and taxpayer money goes to bail it out.

To see more from Doc, visit his channel on TheBlaze and listen live to “The Morning Blaze with Doc Thompson” weekdays 6–9 a.m. ET, only on TheBlaze Radio Network.