I don’t imagine this will make Mitch McConnell feel any better, but McCain, Murkowski, and Collins didn’t kill health care reform. They just put it out of its misery a little sooner so the Senate could move on to other things.
If the skinny repeal bill had passed, the Senate would have spent the next month or two in negotiations with the House. I doubt they could have come up with anything that met the parliamentarian’s requirements and was still acceptable to the House, but maybe they could have. If they did, the result would have inevitably been even more horrendous than the bill that had already failed 43-57. There’s virtually no chance a conference bill could have passed the full Senate.
The last week has made it clear that Obamacare repeal was doomed. John McCain probably understood that and did McConnell a favor by killing it now. I don’t imagine McConnell sees it that way, though.
