Sen. Rand Paul is not giving up on his crusade against the Affordable Care Act despite numerous failed GOP efforts last week.

"From my point of view, I don't think it's over until we fix health care," Paul said Monday morning in Elizabethtown, Kentucky. "I'm talking with some people who voted no to see if they could get to yes."

Paul, who has been advocating for the repeal of the Affordable Care Act across the Bluegrass State, was ultimately shut down by three Republicans last week in the GOP's effort to pass a "skinny repeal" of the Affordable Care Act.

Fellow bluegrass Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell is seeming less optimistic than Paul. Following the failed vote early Friday evening, McConnell said it was "time to move on."

"I think the American people are going to regret that we couldn’t find a better way forward," McConnell said Friday on the Senate floor. "And as I said, we look forward to our colleagues on the other side suggesting what they have in mind.”

Related:Rand Paul wants 'two bill solution' in health care dispute

During a round table with community and business leaders in Elizabethtown on Monday, Paul said he is looking to utilize executive orders from President Donald Trump to push his idea of association health care forward in the wake of the GOP failure.

"I would like to see more coming out of the executive branch," Paul said. "He has the power to legalize nationwide insurance ... I'm going to talk to him about it again this week."

Paul said he hopes Trump will utilize the Employee Retirement Income Security Act, a law from the 1970s that governs how private companies provide benefits, to push his national insurance plan forward.

Related:Lawmaker suggests McConnell resign after failed 'skinny-repeal' bill of Obamacare

Trump, however, has left many in the Republican Party wondering what he will do next.

Last week during a speech to law enforcement in New York, Trump reaffirmed his prior statements that GOP lawmakers should let the Affordable Care Act "implode." Paul said, however, that Trump appears to be open to his plan of legalizing national insurance through associations.

Paul added that he was heading back to Washington D.C. Monday evening and that he would be speaking with President Trump about his health care plan sometime this week.

Reach Reporter Thomas Novelly at 502-582-4465 or by email at tnovelly@courier-journal.com. Follow him on Twitter @TomNovelly.