Congress returns from its latest week-long vacation to face, once again, an Obamacare repeal and replacement bill that no one except lying Paul Ryan supports. After a week away, they're even less keen to deal with Trumpcare than before they left.
Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.), one of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's (R-Ky.) most loyal allies, said Thursday it's "unlikely" the GOP will get a healthcare deal.
"I don't see a comprehensive healthcare plan this year," he told a local news station.
Senate Republicans hoped to have a draft bill this week, but it now looks like that will at best by an outline of parameters.
A Senate Republican aide said it's too early to begin drafting legislation that can come to the floor in the next few weeks.
"Parameters are more likely, said the aide, who explained that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) wants to keep the details held closely so the legislation doesn't get picked apart before lawmakers have a chance to consider it carefully.
"The last thing we want to do is litigate this in the press," the aide said. "We want to discuss parameters and concepts without releasing a draft."
Translation: the only way McConnell can pass this is by letting no one know what is in it until it gets to the floor and then twisting arms to force his members to support it. Because that's how representative democracy is done by Republicans. Remember, McConnell thinks having open debate and working with Democrats on a bill affecting a sixth of the U.S. economy is "wasting time."
He doesn't seem to think there even needs to be open debate among his won Republicans. He tasked Senate staff with figuring the whole thing out while their bosses were away for Memorial Day. That seemingly didn't work, according to The Hill, as the "special 13-member working group have heard very little about the drafting efforts that were supposed to take place over the recess." So that's just great. It's way too soon to declare Trumpcare dead, because we've already seen from the House that Republican leadership can and will reanimate the corpse. But the longer it takes the harder it's going to be for McConnell.