Additionally, no Democrats planned to vote for the bill.
'They're not interested in participating in this,' McConnell said Tuesday.
'We want to,' Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said minutes after, when making his own statement on Capitol Hill.
He then, of course, added caveats.
'Abandon tax breaks for the wealthy, abandon cuts to Medicaid, abandon repeal,' Schumer advised. 'Abandon the closed-door secret process they have used. Go to regular order. Have committee hearings, allow amendments and go back to the idea that you need 60 votes, a bipartisan majority to pass the bill and we can start over again and work together and try to get some improvements in our health care system.'
Schumer said if Republicans stuck with the current bill, which he called 'rotten to the core,' they should expect a fight.
'We're going to fight the bill tooth and nail and we have a darn good chance of defeating it, a week from now, a month from now, a year from now,' the Senate's top Democrat said.
After the White House meeting with Trump, McConnell said he didn't even want the Democrats' help.
'Either Republicans will agree and change the status quo or the markets will continue to collapse and we'll have to sit down with Sen. Schumer,' the leader said. 'And my suspicion is that any negotiation with the Democrats would include none of the reforms that we would like to make on the market side or the Medicaid side.'
Trump, in turn, acted as if the Democrats never offered.
'With ZERO Democrats to help, and a failed, expensive and dangerous ObamaCare as the Dems legacy, the Republican Senators are working hard!' the president tweeted after the White House meeting.
Originally, McConnell, the Senate GOP leader, wanted a vote before the end of this week, with the idea that the House could approve the Senate version or lawmakers could reconcile the differences in a conference committee before they headed home again for the lengthy August recess.
That would provide President Trump with his first big legislative victory since taking office.
But earlier today, Trump entertained one of the most vocal hold-outs at the White House, Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky.
After their meeting, McConnell called off the vote, likely because the conservative from his home state wouldn't budge.
Monday's offering by the Congressional Budget Office hadn't helped matters, as the nonpartisan scorekeeper found that 22 million more American would be uninsured under the Senate GOP plan, compared to Obamacare.
The White House's daily press briefing, which had been happening most days off camera, was delayed as Capitol Hill cameras awaited a statement from McConnell.
'I remember how challenging it was for the Democrats, when they were enacting this back in 2009 and 2010, it's a big complicated subject,' McConnell said, excusing the delay. 'We've got a lot of discussions going on and we're still optimistic we're going to get there.'
When the briefing did begin it was Deputy White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders who emerged, not Sean Spicer, as had been previously advised.
'Obviously we're continuing to be optimistic,' she said, using the same vocabulary as McConnell just did.
'It's never been about the timeline, but about getting the best piece of legislation that helps the most Americans and that's what we're continuing to do, day in and day out, that's the reason why the president has asked members of the Senate to come here today so that they can talk through that, so they can figure out the best way to move the ball forward,' she added.
Spicer is filling the role of communications director in addition to his role as White House press secretary.
The crisis on Capitol Hill appeared to have the Trump spokesman tied up, as he was spotted leaving the capitol Tuesday afternoon, as the briefing was proceeding.
One of the hold-outs, Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, said she would be attending the meeting with Trump Tuesday, but she was unlikely to change her mind.
'I will say I have so many fundamental problems with the bill that have been confirmed by the CBO report that it's difficult for me to see how any tinkering is going to satisfy my fundamental and deep concerns about the impact of the bill,' Collins said on CNN.
By 2026, if the Senate bill were to be implemented, an estimated 49 million Americans would be uninsured, compared to the 28 million who would likely lack insurance under Obamacare, or the Affordable Care Act, the CBO also found.
The White House had brushed off the bad news in a statement Monday evening that slammed CBO's 'history of inaccuracy' and said that the non-partisan entity 'must not be trusted blindly.'
Huckabee Sanders made a similar statement today.
