The next stop for the GOP health care plan to replace the ACA is the Senate. The House on Thursday passed the bill<\/b>
\nThe early reaction from Senate Republicans to the House passage of the American Health Care Act (AHCA) to repeal and replace Obamacare signaled they’re likely to make changes to the House bill.
The chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor & Pensions Committee suggested that GOP senators could even pitch their own legislation to dismantle the Affordable Care Act.
\u00ab\u00a0I congratulate the House on passage of its bills. The Senate will now finish work on our bill, but will take the time to get it right, \u00a0\u00bb Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tennessee, said in a statement.
The goals for the Senate bill, he said, include lowering premium costs, rescuing Americans trapped in the Obamacare exchanges, making sure those with pre-existing conditions have access to insurance and gradually giving states more flexibility with Medicaid.
The House passed the GOP health care bill. The bill will replace Obamacare. CBS News chief White House correspondent Major Garrett joins CBSN to…
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s, R-Kentucky, office said that the upper chamber will consider the measure once budgetary and procedural scorekeeping reviews are completed. The House passed the latest GOP-sponsored version of the bill Thursday afternoon without a new score from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) .
Still, McConnell praised it as \u00ab\u00a0an important step.\u00a0\u00bb
\u00ab\u00a0We are now closer to giving our constituents freedom from the increased costs, diminishing choices, and broken promises of Obamacare, \u00a0\u00bb he said in a statement.
He added that the status quo is \u00ab\u00a0unacceptable, \u00a0\u00bb but McConnell’s statement didn’t say whether the Senate would take up the House bill. The Senate has to first review whether the House measure complies with budget reconciliation rules, which allow for a simple majority of senators to pass a bill rather than a supermajority. If the Senate crafts a different version, it will have to be reconciled with the House.
While other Senate Republicans stopped short of explicitly embracing the bill in its current form, they applauded their House counterparts for moving forward.
\u00ab\u00a0I don’t know what’s in it, \u00a0\u00bb Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-South Carolina, said. \u00ab\u00a0I’d be curious about the Medicaid provisions. South Carolina chose not to expand Medicaid which I thought was responsible. My test will be: is it good for the people of South Carolina? And is it good for the nation? I have no idea yet.\u00a0\u00bb
But Graham also criticized the House for rushing the measure to the floor.
\u00ab\u00a0The bill has been out for less than 24 hours, \u00a0\u00bb Graham said. \u00ab\u00a0No amendments. Debates for three or four hours. Any time you have a process like this that hasn’t been scored you’ve got to be suspicious of the outcome.\u00a0\u00bb
Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona, said he thinks Congress needs to \u00ab\u00a0reach a conclusion, \u00a0\u00bb but he also disapproved of the House decision to vote on the bill before a CBO score had been issued.
\u00ab\u00a0I don’t approve of it, but whatever they want to do. They spend their time criticizing me, but I won’t, \u00a0\u00bb he said.
Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-Louisiana, said \u00ab\u00a0it will be weeks to get a score\u00a0\u00bb and Sen. Rand Paul, R-Kentucky, said that the Freedom Caucus made the bill \u00ab\u00a0a lot less bad.\u00a0\u00bb
\u00ab\u00a0That’s the nicest thing I could think to say, \u00a0\u00bb Paul said. \u00ab\u00a0Part of my problem with the bill is that the underlying premise of Obamacare is that the federal government for the first time would buy insurance for people. That fundamental premise of Obamacare is kept.\u00a0\u00bb
CBS News’ Walt Cronkite contributed to this report.
Rebecca Shabad is a video reporter for CBS News Digital.
The phrase \u201cfake news\u201d has been used by Trump to discredit responsible reporting that he dislikes. But \u00ab\u00a060 Minutes\u2019 \u00a0\u00bb investigation looks at truly fake news created by con-artists
Just how many almonds does he really eat, anyway?<\/p>\n

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