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Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Saturday he will delay consideration of health care legislation in the Senate, after Sen. John McCain's announced absence following surgery left Republicans short of votes on their marquee legislation. (Yen and Werner, 7/15)

A top Senate Republican vowed on Sunday to bring the party’s health care bill to a vote as soon as possible, even as detractors said they would use a delay caused by the absence of Senator John McCain to mobilize further opposition to the measure. “I believe as soon as we have a full contingent of senators, that we’ll have that vote,” the No. 2 Senate Republican, John Cornyn of Texas, said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” (Pear, 7/16)

The condition for which Senator John McCain had surgery on Friday may be more serious than initial descriptions have implied, and it may delay his return to Washington by at least a week or two, medical experts said on Sunday. The Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, has already announced that votes on a bill to dismantle the Affordable Care Act will not begin until Mr. McCain’s return. (Grady and Pear, 7/16)

Without McCain, Senate Republicans likely would not have had the 50 votes necessary to advance the legislation. (Seipel, 7/15)

McCain has said he’s concerned about the impact of proposed Medicaid cuts on his home state, and said on July 13 he couldn’t say whether he would support McConnell’s new bill. He said he was working with Arizona Governor Doug Ducey, a Republican, on a series of Medicaid-related amendments to the bill. (Litvan, 7/15)

Adding to the uncertainty, the Congressional Budget Office also indicated on Sunday it no longer expected to release its analysis on Monday on the estimated cost and scope of insurance coverage under the latest GOP bill, which has the support of President Donald Trump. (Yen and Werner, 7/16)

Privately, Republicans said the delay could be as little as a week as McCain recovers in Arizona, though others worried it could stretch for several weeks and jeopardize the entire repeal effort. (Everett and Kim, 7/16)

The delay prolongs the uncertainty over the bill’s prospects. GOP leaders have pursued a fast-paced timeline, as health-policy changes are often controversial. Sen. John Cornyn, a member of Senate GOP leadership, told reporters last month that passing the bill is “not going to get any easier” with time. Another GOP senator, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, said the bill “is not like fine wine; it doesn’t get better with age.” (Tau, Radnofsky and Peterson, 7/16)

McCain’s fellow Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) reached out to McCain in a statement calling him “tenacious and resilient.” “I have never known a man more tenacious and resilient than John McCain. I look forward to seeing him back at work soon. In the meantime, Cheryl and I extend our best wishes to John, Cindy and the entire McCain family and pray for his speedy recovery," Flake said in a statement. (Manchester, 7/15)

Two White House aides are preemptively casting doubt on the accuracy of the Congressional Budget Office's assessment of Senate Republicans' healthcare plan, claiming the estimate will be "little more than fake news." In an op-ed published in The Washington Post, White House legislative affairs director Marc Short and Brian Blase, a special assistant to the president for healthcare policy at the National Economic Council, urged Americans to give "little weight" to the CBO analysis, known as a score. (Greenwood, 7/15)