Republicans Trying To Win Support To Pass Health Care Bill
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- The vote on the Republican health care bill may be delayed but the work continues.
After failing to get 50 votes, Republicans are trying to regroup and see if they can find a compromise that will win enough support to pass their plan to repeal and replace Obamacare.
"The idea is give every effort to work out these last few differences here this week, get a final decision this week. get it scored by CBO next week come back and vote on it," said Sen. Roger Wicker (R - Mississippi).
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell made the decision to delay a vote after more Republican senators came out against the plan as it's currently written.
"I think we've got a really good chance of getting there, it will just take us a little bit longer," McConnell said.
At the White House, President Donald Trump addressed the issue as he met with the World Series Champion Chicago Cubs.
"Health care is working along very well. We could have a big surprise with a great health care package, so now they're happy," he said. "We're going to have a great, great surprise."
A day after the president met with Republican senators, Trump was asked if he would support a meeting of all 100 senators at the White House, as proposed by Minority Leader Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.).
"Got to find out if he's serious. He hasn't been serious. Obamacare is such a disaster, such a wreck, and he wants to save something that's hurting a lot of people," Trump said. "He's done a lot of talking, bad talking. He just doesn't seem like a serious person."
GOP leaders and the president are working on the holdouts trying to see if they can change the bill enough to bring together the moderates and the conservatives.
"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," said Sen. Susan Collins (R- Maine).
Collins is worried about the cap on federal spending for Medicaid.
"We have still people squawking that we're not keeping enough Medicaid expansion when in fact we keep the Medicaid expansion for seven years. We let the expansion states continue to expand, said Sen. Rand Paul (R-Kentucky).
Paul wants a complete repeal of taxes and regulations put in place under Obamacare.
Meanwhile, the more conservative Democrat Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.V.) said he wants to talk with moderate Republicans.
"As long as everyone is still in the repeal mood in the Republican side, it makes it really challenging, because no Democrats will vote to repeal, but we'll more than happily sit down and work through a repair process," he said.
McConnell says if Republicans have to work with Democrats on the health care bill, they're unlikely to get concessions that will make anyone in his caucus happy.
