You could see this coming from a mile away. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell cannot get 51 votes together among his conference to repeal Obamacare. The vehicle he has to do it is an already-passed House bill that partially repeals the law, as well as defunds Planned Parenthood. In his conference of 54 Republicans, he can't seem to find a formula for getting 51 votes—the number he'd use under budget reconciliation, and a tool that bypasses the usual 60 vote threshold.
Senate Republican sources say the measure, which has encountered opposition from conservatives and moderates, albeit for different reasons, will have to wait until after Thanksgiving. Some say it could slide into next year. […]
Senate Republican Whip John Cornyn (Texas) told reporters last month that "the week or so before Thanksgiving looks like a good opportunity" to move the ObamaCare repeal package.
Now some aides say it may be best to wait until next year or even 2017 to pass as strong a package as possible. […]
"There are five that say you have to repeal all of ObamaCare or they'd vote against it, and you have three that say you have to take Planned Parenthood out or they won't vote for reconciliation," said another Senate GOP aide.
The loudest voices are, as usual, on the extreme right and belong to presidential candidates—and now that Florida Sen. Marco Rubio appears to be the establishment darling, what he wants matters. And what he wants is complete and total repeal. So one scenario could see McConnell trying to keep the moderates by dumping the Planned Parenthood defunding in an attempt to hang on to a simple majority. Except that's not likely to work because there are a bunch of other Republicans who don't want Medicaid expansion to go down the tubes.
He can't have total repeal of Obamacare and he can't have defunding of Planned Parenthood—at least not if he hopes to avoid total embarrassment by not getting 51 votes on a huge attempt at political grandstanding. Which is pretty emblematic of McConnell's leadership to date.