WASHINGTON — Senate Republicans broke into working groups this week to begin crafting their version of the healthcare reform bill and appear apprehensive about placing a due date on delivery of the legislation.
“I don’t think that we should put a hard stop on it and say, ‘We will have a bill by this date and if we don’t were voting anyway.’ That’s not the way to operate,” Alaska Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski told The Daily Caller.
Murkowski is part of a Medicaid working group with Republican Sens. Shelly Moore Capito of West Virginia and Susan Collins of Maine.
Capito noted the length of time it would take for the Congressional Budget Office just to score the House bill that just passed last week.
“I’ll know more about that later, but I would think what you’re first hearing is it’s going to take a couple of weeks to get the [CBO] score. So I think we’ll all welcome that. And then in the meantime, I think we’re all going to be doing working groups,” Sen. Capito told reporters Monday.
She went on to say, “I have my Medicaid working group and then we’re going to do a thing on drug pricing tomorrow so there’s lots going on kind of behind the scenes trying to try to get ready for this.”
Alabama Republican Sen. Richard Shelby told TheDC, “I don’t think we’re in a hurry. I think we’ve got until the fall.”
President Donald Trump pushed for the healthcare bill to be passed in the House as soon as possible, saying that Congress needed to begin work on his tax reform package as well.
Republican senators are relatively unfazed by the two big ticket items coming their ways in the next few months, as House Republicans are already working on tax legislation similar to the blueprint released by the White House last month.
“There’s certainly limited bandwidth, but keep in mind, the House can be working on taxes while we’re doing healthcare,” Sen. Murkowski told TheDC.
Sen. Capito noted, “We’ll have to see. I don’t think [the health care and tax legislations] are tied but I don’t think that they necessarily have to sink or swim together.”
“I don’t know. It might not affect it…well everything affects everything. Both of them are in their early stages,” Sen. Shelby said.
