Senate healthcare vote delayed after John McCain has blood clot removed

Republican leaders are delaying a vote on their troubled plans to overhaul America’s healthcare while John McCain, a senior Senator, recovers at home from surgery leaving them short of a majority.

It is the latest setback to efforts to repeal and replace Obamacare after years of promises.

Republicans were struggling to build a majority for their legislation in the Senate, which they hold by 52 seats to 48, even before Mr McCain’s office announced on Saturday that he had undergone surgery to remove a blood clot from above his left eye.

His week-long absence to recuperate prompted Mitch McConnell, Republican leader in the Senate, to immediately announce a delay on a vote that had been expected this week.

"While John is recovering, the Senate will continue our work on legislative items and nominations, and will defer consideration of the Better Care Act," he said, without offering a new date for the vote.

The pause will only heap more pressure on Senators, who face anger from constituents who fear losing health cover under a plan that rolls back Barack Obama’s expansion of the Medicaid programme to pay for the poor and disabled. Analysis of an earlier version suggested more than 20 million Americans could lose their coverage in the next decade.

Donald Trump made repealing Obamacare central to his election campaign and has told Republican leaders that he is ready and waiting to sign legislation.

But even before the latest delay two Republican Senators said they would vote against the plan and six more said they had reservations.

Doctors at the Mayo Clinic Hospital in Phoenix said Mr McCain, 80, had a “minimally invasive” operation to remove a two-inch clot which went “very well”.

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