Senator Majority Leader Mitch McConnell does not have have enough votes to proceed to debate on their deathcare bill, much less pass it, so the vote scheduled for this week has been canceled.
Without a firm date in place, the Senate is expected to vote on a new version of the bill at some point after the July 4th recess.
From the Associated Press:
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., delivered the message to GOP senators at a private lunch also attended by Vice President Mike Pence and White House chief of staff Reince Priebus. The decision was described by a Republican aide and another informed person who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the closed-door decision.
This doesn't mean the bill is dead and it could actually become worse.
House Republicans also delayed the vote on their version of the bill but, as you know, they ultimately passed it by giving the Freedom Caucus exactly what they wanted. They made the bill worse to pass it.
A similar dynamic could play out in the Senate with Senators Rand Paul, Ted Cruz, Ron Johnson, and Mike Lee holding out for a crueler version of the bill.
On a related note, this means Congress will have slightly less than three weeks to pass their repeal of Obamacare before their summer recess which begins on July 28th. Congress also needs to raise the federal debt ceiling before leaving town.
If they fail to repeal Obamacare before the summer recess, they'll have just three weeks to do so (again) when they return to Washington in September. They'll also need to fund the federal government prior to Fiscal 2018 which begins on October 1st.
Crunch time is coming and what happens will tell us a lot about what to expect between now and the 2018 election.