�Թϲ�����

Republicans have a new promise on health care: It’s not over. As the GOP trumpeted the framework of a new tax overhaul plan at the Capitol on Wednesday, lawmakers wrestled with their message to voters after promises to roll back the Affordable Care Act officially came up short Tuesday, when party leaders scrapped a final vote after nine months of failed attempts. Now, Republicans are promising that repeal will still happen before the current session of Congress ends in January 2019. (Peterson and Armour, 9/27)

President Trump in a new interview scheduled to air Thursday insisted that Republicans have the votes to repeal ObamaCare and will pass health care reform in “a few months.” “So we'll bring it into a few months from now. We'll vote it - it's block grants. It's going to be great health care,’ Trump told “Fox & Friends.” (Shelbourne, 9/27)

Leaders decided Tuesday that the Senate won’t vote before Saturday’s deadline to use a fast-track procedure to keep Democrats from blocking a GOP-only bill and they said they would turn instead to overhauling the U.S. tax system. “We don’t have the votes” for the health-care bill, co-sponsor Bill Cassidy of Louisiana told reporters in Washington. “We’ve made the decision, since we don’t have the votes, we’ll postpone that vote.” (Litvan and Dennis, 9/27)

Guess what? Turns out Republicans have the votes to push health care legislation through the Senate, but they’ve been flummoxed because one supportive senator is in the hospital. That was President Donald Trump’s view of where things stand Wednesday on Capitol Hill. And it’s not true. Trump made the remarks a day after Senate GOP leaders discarded their drive to repeal President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul. They lacked the votes to succeed, a not-so-minor snag that hadn’t changed. The three GOP senators whose opposition sunk the Republican measure all remained against it, aides confirmed. (Fram, 9/27)

To the Republicans vowing to keep their Obamacare repeal drive alive for as long as it takes, Democrats say: Please, and thank you. While Senate Republicans abandoned their last-gasp attempt to topple Obamacare before a Saturday deadline, they’re already suggesting they might try again next year. That timing — President Donald Trump said Wednesday that Congress would take up repeal again in the first quarter of next year — could keep the threat of upending the health care system front of mind in the thick of the 2018 campaign season. (Schor and Caygle, 9/28)

Senate Republicans are reckoning with an insurgent’s win in Alabama that poses clear threats to their own grip on power and the leadership of Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. Nearly $10 million spent by a McConnell-backed super PAC couldn’t save incumbent GOP Sen. Luther Strange, who had been endorsed by President Donald Trump as well. It came the same day that McConnell, short of votes, pulled the plug on the latest and possibly final GOP effort to repeal and replace “Obamacare.” (Werner, 9/28)

Now, a majority leader celebrated for years as a brilliant tactician looks vulnerable — to dissent within his Senate conference and to insurgents from President Trump’s populist wing of the party, who are looking to storm the Senate in 2018. And if Republicans fail to fulfill their next promise — overhauling the tax code — the consequences will be dire. (Stolberg, 9/27)