So the senate is now too unhealthy to start debate on the healthcare bill.

They discovered a blood clot in John McCain and will be postponing debate until he recovers.

The blood clot that may have saved and/or killed ocare.

Isn't there some sort of a time limit on using reconciliation? Or was that entirely self-imposed?

I read (I think) in a Politico article that Mitch McConnell's plan is to temporarily table the health care bill if he knows he doesn't have the votes [to pass] and move on to other business. If the health care bill suddenly comes up for debate, it will be over ... McConnell will not bring up the bill for debate until he knows he has the votes for passage.

In short, the Republicans are not giving up on repealing Obamacare.

One calculation going around is that we may have a better chance to stop the vote "to proceed" rather than the actual full Senate vote on the bill. When you call your Senators, don't forget to tell them to vote no To Proceed as well as on the actual bill.

I get that some of these guys aren't that sharp, but I'm pretty sure they can figure that part out on their own if your general opposition to the AHCA is persuasive.

Andy Slavitt is a great follow on Twitter for up-to-date info on this whole process.

MSNBC: The American people don't want repeal and replace. They want you to fix Obamacare.
GOP Rep: That's exactly what we're doing, fixing Obamacare. Every bill in Congress is a repeal and replace, even if it's a language change. We often do things like repeal a comma and replace it with a period.

Wow, apparently there was some kind of connection between McCain's bizarre, non-nonsensical questioning of Comey and the blood clot surgery that he had.

This has been a very weird story - the WSJ finally reported that he had a crainiotomy, which would imply a clot on the brain - whether an epidural or (more likely) a subdural isn't clear.

Which is a pretty serious procedure for anyone, but especially someone of 80 years of age. So the thought that he's going to be back and fully functional in a few days seems unlikely.

How much this had to do with his sort of weird mental status the last couple of times he's been on TV isn't clear, but it probably wasn't helping things.

And, BTW, describing this condition as "a clot above his eye" as it originally came out, is either a pathetic attempt at minimizing his condition, or horse**** reporting.

MM MD

Blood clot over eye, frontal lobe brain tumor. Tomato, tomato.

https://twitter.com/FoxNews/status/886684803579432960

To quote Ahnold "it's not a tuuumorah"

Subdural bleeds are pretty common in older people even with minor head trauma. If he's on any of a number of blood thinners, which a lot of older patients are for various reasons, it's even more common - even without trauma.

But year, "clot over eye" - that is either willfully disingenuous or just stupid.

MM MD

Jerry Moran (lol) and Mike Lee tweeting that they are still NOs

No those are new NOs, that kills the bill.

Wow, I thought the turtle had it.

To be fair, I was being as willfully disingenuous as they were. I'm sure McCain will go on expressing concerns and voting lockstep until he's 98 y/o.

McConnell is trying to sell the bill as all things to all people. Deep cuts to Medicaid for the conservatives and then tells the moderates the cuts really won't happen

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer...trumpcare.html

No way, Susan Collins mentioned on Sunday that there were still around 10 "moderates" who were "nos". She may have been exaggerating, but some are clearly laying low yet would still vote no if pressed. The press has been giving McConnell way too much benefit of the doubt. The bill is a turd and everyone knows it. The governors apparently were not happy last week.

One more time

Title change imo

Yes please. Change to "Who knew health care could be so hard?"

"BCRA, Neither Better, Nor an Act"

This doesn't make sense, if they were that far from getting the votes McConnell wouldn't be pressing as much as he has and they definitely wouldn't be moving the bill to the right with the Cruz amendment.
It kills this draft, but if they're two votes short they'll pass something eventually.