Senate Republicans have yet to reach a deal on a bill to repeal and replace Obamacare, even though leadership expects to release the bill text as early as Thursday.
“We are down now to the fine points as opposed to big differences, but we’ve still got to get to where we get consensus and settle on some of these major points of the bill,” said Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., the third-ranking GOP senator, after exiting a closed-door meeting on healthcare Tuesday.
Thune didn’t elaborate on what the “fine points” are or how small they are, but added he wasn’t concerned that the Senate hasn’t gotten consensus yet on major issues. “We expected this was going to be complicated and it is,” he said.
Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, the second-ranking GOP senator, said some parts of the bill were bogging Republicans down. But when asked which parts, Cornyn simply replied, “it’s all hard.”
Since the House passed the American Health Care Act, Senate Republicans have held small working group meetings twice a week and lunches three times a week to update all members of the conference on healthcare.
Senate Republicans are hoping to get a vote on the bill before the July 4 recess. But getting there will require Republicans to reach a deal on issues that include Medicaid expansion under Obamacare, and tax credits to help people pay for health insurance.
Some centrist senators want to gradually phase out the expansion over seven years. However, leadership has been pushing for a three-year phase out.
Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, told the Washington Examiner while eading to the latest healthcare working group meeting that he still favors seven years. Portman is from a state that expanded Medicaid, as are other centrist Republican senators pushing for a longer phase out.
Some conservatives are also worried about whether the bill’s tax credits to pay down health insurance costs are too generous.
“If our bill comes in with greater subsidies than Obamacare, then it is gonna be harder for conservatives to support a bill that has greater subsidies than Obamacare,” Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., said Monday.
Paul and Portman’s comments illustrate rifts between conservatives and centrists over the direction of the legislation.
GOP senators say they haven’t seen any legislative text yet and hope to get a text by Thursday in anticipation of a vote next week before the recess. Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, said that she hasn’t seen any text and hopes to get it with enough time to study the AHCA before a vote.
She doesn’t think a vote next week gives the Senate “enough time to thoroughly analyze the bill, but we will see when it comes out and how quickly we get the [Congressional Budget Office] analysis.”
The headline was corrected from an earlier version that missidentified John Cornyn with John Thune.
