Senate Republicans are backing off their criticism of the House Republicans’ Obamacare repeal proposal, wary of the consequences that a second failure would have for the party’s quest to gut the law.

Compared with the Senate GOP’s open attempts to sink the previous effort by House Republicans, senators have been relatively muted this time. There’ve been no blistering statements from conservative Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas, Mike Lee of Utah and Rand Paul of Kentucky, nor has Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas done a media tour warning that House members could lose their seats for supporting the legislation.


The shift by Paul is especially striking. The libertarian-minded Republican spent much of March attacking the House GOP’s effort as “Obamacare-lite.” He doesn’t like the latest plan, either, but is generally holding his fire.

“I think they’re going to pass something this time. I think it’s heading in that direction. I think the Freedom Caucus has made it less bad. I’m not sure it’s as good as it needs to be,” Paul said.

There’s a growing recognition among Republican senators that failure in the House this time around would mean that the GOP is blowing its best and perhaps only shot at repealing Obamacare, which was once pegged as the easiest win on the agenda because Republicans can gut the law via a simple majority vote. As Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) put it Tuesday: “We don’t want to give up on this.”

“People are coming to a conclusion that it’s pretty important at some point we legislate on this. We’ve got to deliver,” said Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.). “People are starting to calm down a little bit and tone down some of the rhetoric. … If we’re going to get a solution, all of us are going to have to figure out a constructive way to make that happen.”

Instead of privately hoping for failure, various factions of Republican senators are preparing to overhaul the House bill, even as the lower chamber’s effort appears more imperiled by the hour. Thune is preparing a proposal to make tax credits in the bill more generous, while Cruz, Lee, Cotton and Sens. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, Rob Portman of Ohio and Cory Gardner of Colorado have quietly created a working group to tackle the difficult problem of how quickly to curb Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion.

But all that is moot if it fails in the House. “I just hope the House gets the damn thing done,” said Sen. Pat Roberts of Kansas.

“Getting that bill out of there no matter what it says or what’s in it should probably be the No. 1 priority of the House leadership,” said a Republican senator. “If you’re a House leader, [the Senate] is probably not what you should be worrying about on health care.”

Senators face a tough task if the House ends up sending them a bill: They want to ease up on Medicaid cuts, preserve protections for people with pre-existing conditions and make tax credits more generous. And they have to make sure the bill can pass the Senate’s strict budgetary rules so repeal can be approved on a party line vote.

Republican senators whose support would be vital say they’ll need major changes to the House’s legislation to get behind it.

“My concern is they aren’t doing enough on expanded Medicaid. So I prefer that they fix that before sending it to us,” Portman said. “They want to cut it off in 2020; we want a longer runway.”

“There’s some concerns there,” Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) said of preserving protections for people with pre-existing conditions. “I’m hoping we don’t rush it.”

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Most senators agree. After McConnell vowed to jam Obamacare repeal through the Senate before the Easter recess during the last go-round, Republicans are preparing to proceed cautiously and deliberately.

Senators are not planning on a vote in May. It may take even longer.

“The activist base is pushing hard. I don’t care about pressure; I can take all the pressure they want to put on me,” said Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah. “We’d like to get it done before the end of July. No question.”

But even if McConnell can get 50 of his 52 GOP senators to vote for a bill, there’s no guarantee that the House would swallow what the Senate sends back. That has some Republicans thinking that perhaps all the effort isn’t worth it.

“I just don’t see how you square the circle here. Some of the things the Freedom Caucus wants probably won’t make it through the Senate. I think Rand Paul’s a no, no matter what,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.). “I’d just let the damn thing collapse … and challenge the Democrats to help fix it.”

Brent Griffiths and Elana Schor contributed to this report.

