Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.) said on Tuesday that he was confident Senate Republicans could come together to pass a measure repealing and replacing the Affordable Care Act (ACA).
In an appearance on “Fox & Friends,” Lankford called for Senate Republicans to hash out their differences on the bill, rather than trying to rally support for the current measure “one at a time.”
“I’m still optimistic that we can [pass the bill], and because we must. This is kind of a no-fail moment that you have to be able to resolve all these issues,” he said. “My focus for weeks has been, let’s get all the people that disagree in one room and let’s hammer this all out at one moment.”
“For whatever reason, we’ve not been allowed to do that — to get all the different factions into one room at one time,” he added. “We’ve all been negotiating one at a time. If we can get everybody together at one time and finish this, I think we can get it done.”
{mosads}Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Rand Paul (R-Ky.) announced last week that they would vote against the current Senate healthcare bill.
But two more Republican lawmakers in the chamber — Sens. Mike Lee (Utah) and Jerry Moran (Kan.) — said on Monday that they would not vote for the current plan to overhaul the nation’s healthcare system, effectively killing the measure for the time being.
Republicans have remained divided on the best way to replace ObamaCare. Paul, for example, said the current proposal did not go far enough to repeal the existing law and lower insurance premiums.
Collins, on the other hand, has expressed concern over the Senate bill’s proposed cuts to Medicaid and has called for Republicans and Democrats to work together to fix the ACA.