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Because he needs more time to find the votes.

McConnell delays Senate health care vote until after July 4 recess

By Dan Calabrese ——--June 28, 2017

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The good news is the Senate health care bill isn't going to fail this week. The bad news is that's only because Mitch McConnell recognized the car was heading for a cliff and had the good sense to hit the brakes. For now. With three Republicans and one libertarian having announced their refusal to back the bill in its present form, there's more work to do, and McConnell isn't going to get it done before the July 4 recess. So the vote will have to wait until everyone returns on July 10, or later:
The delay came after efforts stalled to tweak the legislation and garner support from the nine Republican senators who now oppose the bill. The Republican opposition was significant enough that even a routine procedural motion allowing the vote to proceed faced potential defeat.
In a test of his leadership, Mr. McConnell now will need to bridge a divide between conservative Republicans, who say the bill retains too many of the ACA’s regulations to significantly lower premiums, and GOP centrists, who worry the legislation goes too far in cutting funding to Medicaid. From now until Congress’ return from the recess, there is likely to be a run of deal-making, arm-twisting and lobbying, with voters voicing their opinions in town-hall meetings, Republican leaders offering changes and organizations trying to sway senators on all sides. The delay is a setback for President Donald Trump and Mr. McConnell, who had promised a vote this week. On Monday, Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, the second-ranking Senate Republican, tweeted that “I am closing the door” on a delay because “we need to do it this week.” On Tuesday, asked if the door was back open, Mr. Cornyn tweeted, “Just a crack.” Still, Senate leaders took comfort from the experience of House Republicans, whose own health bill was initially declared dead. They were then able to regroup, bring it to the floor and pass it in May.
In the end, it won't matter how long it took for the bill to pass as long as it passes, except to the extent it delays momentum on other priorities, particularly tax reform. But the delay might make it harder to keep together the support the bill has. The media was absolutely gleeful on Monday when the Congressional Budget Office claimed the Senate bill would throw 22 million people off their health insurance. As we explained, that's not at all an accurate reading of what will happen or why. But this is politics, not reality, and it's the perfect talking point to use in scaring nervous Republicans over the next few weeks. Expect a very hard sell between now and the end of the recess by Democrats and their media megaphones. They'll hammer the idea that thousands of people will die if the bill passes. This is completely absurd, of course, because all the bill does is change the manner by which health insurance is purchased, and who is eligible for Medicaid. It doesn't keep anyone from actually getting insurance, and it frees up all kinds of market forces that will make both care and coverage more accessible. But again, this is politics, not reality. The goal will be to scare the bejeezus out of every Republican senator, such that they believe the voters will engage in a revolt against them if they vote for the bill.

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Then again, that is not going to scare the four holdouts. They're the ones who want to make the bill even more conservative, which is good in terms of policy but will make it more difficult to hold together any sort of majority to pass the thing, let alone get something successfully out of conference committee later so it can pass both the House and the Senate and go to President Trump for his signature. This was always going to be very difficult to accomplish. In that respect, it's keeping its promise 100 percent.
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Dan Calabrese——

Dan Calabrese’s column is distributed by HermanCain.com, which can be found at HermanCain

Follow all of Dan’s work, including his series of Christian spiritual warfare novels, by liking his page on Facebook.

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