Senate measure to repeal Obamacare fails

With the failure Wednesday afternoon of the 2015 House bill that would just repeal the Affordable Care Act, Congress' two best chances to scrap Obamacare in one fell swoop dissipated before senators' eyes.

That amendment, which also contained a provision to delay the implementation of a repeal by two years to allow lawmakers to come up with a replacement system, failed 45-55, with seven Republicans joining their Democratic colleagues in opposition.

The Senate will now continue voting on measures from both parties, with the Republican ones mostly geared toward scrapping individual aspects of Obamacare one by one -- still in pursuit of the goal Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., laid out Wednesday morning.

"Ultimately, we want to get legislation that will finally end the Obamacare status quo through Congress and to the president's desk," he said.

The straight repeal-only option was based on 2015 piece of legislation that passed both chambers of Congress but was vetoed by then-President Barack Obama.

Although that language cleared the House and Senate back then, some Senate Republicans acknowledge now that the vote was symbolic. It was used by some at the time to send a message to Obama and to their constituents back home even though they knew it would be vetoed. And before today's vote, some Republicans said they would not back the repeal-only option this time.

Senate Republicans' first attempt at passing their replacement legislation failed last night, with nine Republicans joining all of the chamber's Democrats to defeat it, 43-57.

That outcome was not a surprise, given that the bill was previously pulled from the Senate floor because of lack of support.

Republicans from several factions of the party stated their objections to it for a variety of reasons, including its proposed cuts to Medicaid, failure to cut premiums sufficiently and failure to repeal Obamacare entirely.

Republican leadership is expected to move through various versions of repeal, including limited repeal options that would scrap only portions of the Affordable Care Act, such as the individual and employer mandates.

After those votes, the full Senate, even Democrats, will be able to offer additional amendments.

That so-called vote-a-rama later this week could open the floodgates for all senators to introduce as many amendments as they want.

That process could last until senators are physically exhausted.

Democrats have said they have hundreds of amendments to offer and are preparing for a marathon.