Senate Republicans demand changes to House health care bill, Grassley says

U.S. Senate Republicans are demanding changes to the health care bill now moving through Congress during a meeting with representatives from the House GOP, U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley told reporters on Wednesday.

Three envoys from the House met with the Senate caucus in a closed-door meeting Tuesday to discuss how the American Health Care Act — the GOP approach to repealing and replacing Obamacare — can gain traction in the upper chamber.

The bill has been assailed from both sides in recent days, particularly after an analysis performed by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office found millions would be uninisured if Obamacare was repealed.

“They got a clear message from Senate Republicans that there had to be changes,” said Grassley, R-Iowa, who described the meeting during a conference call with Iowa reporters Wednesday.

The meeting turned on the apparent reality that the House bill as currently written will not pass the Senate, where conservatives and moderates alike have raised concerns, Grassley said.

“They aren’t thinking only in terms of getting 218 votes in the House,” Grassley said of the officials who came attended the meeting. “How do you get 51 votes in the United States Senate? That’s what they’re looking at.”

Of particular concern is the CBO finding that late-middle-aged Americans could see massive spikes in their insurance costs as a result of the bill, Grassley said. That issue will have to be addressed before Senate Republicans can take up the bill.

Grassley declined to identify who the three “House people” were who met with the caucus, because such intra-party meetings are private.

Even as he identified necessary changes to the bill, Grassley indicated he remains committed to passing some version of an Obamacare repeal and cast doubt on the accuracy of the CBO analysis, which found that 24 million Americans could ultimately lose insurance coverage as a result of the bill.

“It’s incumbent on Republicans to act,” Grassley said. “If I thought we had a second, third, fourth or fifth opportunity to do something, then maybe I’d take a different look at this but after six years of promising people you’re going to repeal and reform, if this is the only opportunity, I don’t think Republicans can afford to miss it.”