GOP senators blink on a chance to repeal 'Obamacare'

Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, arrives for a vote as the Republican-run Senate rejected a GOP proposal to scuttle President Barack Obama's health care law and give Congress two years to devise a replacement, Wednesday, July 26, 2017, at the Capitol in Washington. President Donald Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., have been stymied by opposition from within the Republican ranks. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, arrives for a vote as the Republican-run Senate rejected a GOP proposal to scuttle President Barack Obama's health care law and give Congress two years to devise a replacement, Wednesday, July 26, 2017, at the Capitol in Washington. President Donald Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., have been stymied by opposition from within the Republican ranks. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

WASHINGTON (AP) - After seven years of campaign promises, Senate Republicans demonstrated they didn't have the numbers to repeal "Obamacare" on Wednesday when it actually counted. The Senate voted 55-45 to reject legislation to throw out major portions of Barack Obama's law without replacing it.

Seven Republicans joined all Democrats in rejecting a measure by GOP Sen. Rand Paul, of Kentucky, that would have repealed most of former President Obama's health care law, with a two-year delay but no replacement. Congress passed nearly identical legislation in 2015 and sent it to Obama, who vetoed it.

Yet this time, with Republican President Donald Trump in the White House itching to sign the bill, the measure failed on the Senate floor. The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that repealing "Obamacare" without replacing it would cost more than 30 million Americans their insurance coverage, and that was a key factor in driving away more Republican senators than Majority Leader Mitch McConnell could afford to lose in the closely divided Senate.

The result frustrated other GOP senators, some of whom expressed disbelief their colleagues would flip-flop on legislation they had voted for only two years ago and long promised to voters. Of the current Republican senators, only moderate Susan Collins, of Maine, opposed the 2015 repeal bill.

"Make no mistake: Today's vote is a major disappointment to people who were promised full repeal," Sen. Ben Sasse, of Nebraska, said. "We still have a long, long way to go - both in health policy and in honesty."

It's not over yet.

But what the party's senators might end up agreeing on instead is far from clear. They are plunging ahead with debate toward their unknown goal, pressured by the president. By week's end Republicans hope to reach agreement among themselves, and eventually with the House, on some kind of repeal and replacement for the Obama law they have reviled for so long.

"We have to keep working hard," McConnell, R-Ky., said. "We're determined to do everything we can to succeed. We know our constituents are counting on us."

One possibility taking shape in talks among senators was a "skinny repeal" that would abolish just a few of the key elements of Obama's law including its mandates that everyone purchase insurance and its taxes that all GOP senators can agree to oppose. But some said the tactic was aimed chiefly at moving the process forward into the purview of a committee of Senate-House bargainers while others expressed the hope the House would swallow a "skinny bill" whole, freeing Congress to move on to other issues.

Either way, after weeks spent on the issue including false starts and near-death experiences that have eaten up months of Trump's presidency, the realization was dawning on senators they may be unable to pass anything more complex for now than a lowest-common-denominator bill.

"At the end of the day, we've got to start somewhere. This is a start," Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., said.