By Susan Wright

Texas Senator Ted Cruz held a town hall event on Thursday night, sponsored by the Concerned Veterans for America, with the initial topic of discussion to be the Department of Veterans Affairs and ongoing concerns for the nation’s veterans.

Apparently, many of those in the audience felt the ongoing struggle to replace Obamacare was equally relevant to their concerns, and they pressed Cruz on it.

Cruz’s endorsement of repealing and then later replacing ObamaCare comes after Trump tweeted his support for such a plan last week. Trump’s tweet came after the Republican Senate leadership delayed a vote on the Obamacare overhaul due to lack of support.

GOP leadership had hoped for a vote before leaving for their July 4 recess, but they did not have the votes to make it a reality. The new goal is to have a bill ready to sign before going on their August recess.

Does it seem as if people in Washington take a lot of vacations?

Cruz offered an amendment to the GOP bill, which would retain the current system’s provision that allows people who purchase insurance plans in the market to keep the plan of their choice.

Part of Cruz’s amendment to the bill also allows for insurers to sell cheaper plans that wouldn’t necessarily follow the regulations for Obamacare, as long as that insurer also sold at least one plan that followed the Obamacare regulations.

The window for coming to an agreement on the bill is closing quickly, with many saying that if it doesn’t make it through the next recess, it’s dead in the water.

Republicans ran on repealing Obamacare, not “tweaking” it. Now they’re faced with the reality that if they can’t move this forward, many of them will be dealing with a bleak 2018.