As Mitch McConnell scrambles for votes in the Senate, protesters target Republican senators in 10 states.

The political battle to stop the GOP-led Congress from destroying healthcare safety nets, via House and Senate bills to dismantle Obamacare and shrink Medicaid, jumped into a new orbit Wednesday, as the Senate Majority Leader said he would keep revising the legislation and numerous pro-healthcare groups stepped up their protests.

On Tuesday, Mitch McConnell announced he did not have enough votes to pass his healthcare-cutting bill before the upcoming long July 4 holiday recess. While McConnell said on Wednesday that he hoped to have a revised bill before the weekend, his failure to get 50 out of 52 Republican senators to go along prompted progressives and Democrats to launch a new wave of protests, phone-banking, letter-writing and other efforts targeting Republicans in 10 states before Congress reconvenes in mid-July.

These efforts come as new polls find that only 12 percent of the public supports the Senate Republicans’ healthcare plan.

“A 53% majority say Congress should either leave the law known as Obamacare alone or work to fix its problems while keeping its framework intact,” the USA Today/Suffolk University poll said.

By midday Wednesday, protests had begun. Outside the Capitol, NARAL Pro-Choice America held a rally attended by several Democratic senators and Vermont Independent Bernie Sanders. Meanwhile, on the opposite side of the country, Progressive Democrats of America activists hovered in the Phoenix and Tuscon offices of Arizona Republican Sen. Jeff Flake, where they held signs saying, “Healthcare is a Right” and “Medicare for All,” and wore hats saying, “Single-payer now.”

…continue reading on AlterNet…