For weeks conservatives, starting with our friends in the House Freedom Caucus and Tea Party Patriots, have been demanding that Congress forego its traditional August recess to actually get some work done – and especially to pass the long-promised repeal and replacement of Obamacare.

Late yesterday afternoon – after throwing cold water on the idea for a couple of weeks – the Republican establishment blinked and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell issued the following statement:

"Once the Senate completes its work on health care reform, we will turn to other important issues including the National Defense Authorization Act and the backlog of critical nominations that have been mindlessly stalled by Democrats.

In order to provide more time to complete action on important legislative items and process nominees that have been stalled by a lack of cooperation from our friends across the aisle, the Senate will delay the start of the August recess until the third week of August."

Our friends in the House Freedom Caucus were quick to congratulate Senator McConnell on finally seeing that his 2-vote Senate majority was in serious jeopardy if he didn’t get to work on repealing and replacing Obamacare, saying:

We applaud Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s decision to keep the Senate in session in August to accomplish the important work of the American people. We call on House leadership to do the same. There are too many unresolved issues before Congress including tax reform, health care, the debt ceiling, government funding, and more to leave Washington before the people’s work is done. It is imperative that the additional weeks are coupled with decisive action.

While it is true that Senate Democrats have engaged in an unprecedented campaign of obstruction against the confirmation of President Trump’s nominees for senior positions in his administration, that’s not the real reason McConnell hasn’t gotten much done in the Senate.

McConnell’s real problem is that he just can’t bring himself to work with the Senate’s conservatives, such as Senators Ted Cruz, Mike Lee and Rand Paul, to craft legislation through regular order.

Instead, he wants to write every bill in the Majority Leader’s office.

The result of this folly has been that McConnell has come up with draft bills that appeal to the lobbyists on Washington’s K Street and the Senate staffers who have never done anything but go to college and work on Capitol Hill, but that always fail to deliver on the promised policies – such as lowering health insurance premiums for America’s hard-pressed working families.

Senate Conservatives have a bill that will in fact lower health insurance premiums; it’s called the Consumer Freedom Option.

And it is picking up steam.

Senator Jeff Flake (R-AZ) is facing a tough reelection challenge from the Right by our friend Dr. Kelly Ward. Flake suddenly got religion and told Capitol Hill reporters that he backed the Cruz – Lee legislation to allow insurance companies to offer less-expensive health policies as long as at least one of their options meets the requirements of former President Barack Obama's Affordable Care Act, or "Obamacare."

Flake had been saying that he had not yet made up his mind regarding the Mitch McConnell's Better Care Reconciliation Act, which stalled late last month ahead of an anticipated vote.

Flake’s switch makes it pretty clear that the problem in the Senate Republican Conference is Mitch McConnell’s unwillingness to actually pursue conservative policy solutions to the health insurance cost and availability crisis brought on by Obamacare’s impossible mandates.

It's time for conservatives to hang tough and force McConnell to move the Consumer Freedom Option.

We urge CHQ readers to call Sen. Mitch McConnell, Sen. John McCain, Sen. Susan Collins, Sen. Jerry Moran, Sen. Dean Heller and Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (the Capitol Switchboard is 1-866-220-0044) to tell them you want a vote on the Consumer Freedom Option. Tell them it’s time for Senate Republicans to let the American people know whether they stand with consumers who want choice and freedom or with the Democrats and their abusive and intrusive Obamacare healthcare mandates.