Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is stressing that Republican lawmakers opposed to the House GOP Obamacare replacement will have “plenty of opportunity” to change when it comes to the Senate floor.
“People will offer amendments, there are unlimited amendments — unlimited,” the Kentucky Republican said during a Political Playbook interview Thursday morning. “Not everyone is going to like everything in the bill — that’s the way legislation is. I’ll say it again, it’s not like nobody is going to have a chance to change it.”
Republicans are using a budget reconciliation process, which requires only a 51-vote majority to pass, to repeal and replace Obamacare.
McConnell said that process doesn’t allow GOP leaders to “shut anyone out.”
“Certainly, on the Senate side there will be plenty of opportunities to change the bill,” he said.
He also noted that he is “not alarmed by the fact” that there are “significant differences of opinion” over the bill.
McConnell also argued that the Republicans’ process is more transparent than critics’ have said this week.
“The process is completely open — it wasn’t written in Harry Reid’s office for example,” he said.
President Trump is squarely behind the bill and is committed to using his power as president to persuade reluctant Republicans to get behind it, McConnell said.
“He’s all in … he wants to do everything he can to encourage our members in the House and Senate to support it,” McConnell said.
Despite the more open Senate amendment process, McConnell said he hopes in the long run Republicans can see the value of keeping their promise to voters to repeal and replace the law.
“I hope in the end people will remember what [Ronald] Reagan said, that if you get 80 percent of what you want, you call it a win and move on, and this bill is full of things that Republicans think are significant,” he said.
McConnell differed with the White House on the need for a Congressional Budget Office analysis of the law’s impact on the budget and number of insured Americans. McConnell said a CBO score of the measure would come out Monday.
“We’ll know by Monday, and that’s important,” he said. “I think we need to know that.”
The White House Wednesday suggested that the CBO’s work was not always accurate. Spokesman Sean Spicer said it was “way off last time” when it analyzed the cost and insurance impacts of the Affordable Care Act.
