Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell announced Monday GOP lawmakers would keep working this week to find consensus on legislation to repeal and replace Obamacare, signaling lawmakers have yet to strike a deal.
“Members will keep working this week because bringing relief from Obamacare may not be easy, but it is necessary,” McConnell said on the Senate floor. “We are going to keep working hard to get this done.”
According to a top Republican leadership aide, GOP leaders are holding continuing “conversations” with the Congressional Budget Office, which determines the cost of legislative proposals and is expected at some point to provide a full price tag for whatever the Senate GOP proposes.
Leadership aides would not reveal the details of the talks between the leadership and the CBO on the healthcare law, but the exchanges are not unusual when lawmakers are seeking feedback as they write major proposals.
Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, said Monday, “There’s an ongoing conversation with CBO, but there’s no bill yet.”
McConnell said Republicans are determined to move a bill to repeal and replace the embattled healthcare law, which is suffering from a collapsing insurance marketplace that is plagued by skyrocketing premiums and deductibles and shrinking choices.
“The status quo is unsustainable and demands action,” McConnell said.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., criticized the lack of information about what the GOP is planning. He said the GOP would “try to jam through a healthcare bill that nobody in America has seen” and called it “one of the most outrageous examples of legislative malpractice in decades.”
