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Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.
Senate Republican leaders announced unexpectedly on Tuesday afternoon that they will delay the body's vote on the GOP healthcare bill until after the July 4th recess, multiple news outlets have confirmed.The decision came after key Republican senators came out against the draft law once the Congressional Budget Office reported that 22 million Americans would lose health insurance as a result of the controversial legislation being pushed by Senate leaders and the White House.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's move to delay the vote comes after at least five senators, both from the conservative and moderate wings of the party, publicly said they would not support a key procedural vote to allow the bill to advance to debate.
Conservative Sens. Rand Paul, Ron Johnson, and Mike Lee also said they were against moving the bill because they did not believe the bill went far enough in its repeal of Obamacare.
The divisions made it difficult for McConnell to find a pathway to amend the bill and win over enough members to even get the bill to the floor debate.
McConnell originally hoped to be done with the bill before the weeklong July 4 recess in order to avoid prolonged public scrutiny similar to the House's American Health Care Act, which went through two false starts before passing.
Bob Bryan contributed to this report.