Story highlights Some House Republicans were being granted a chance to review an Obamacare repeal draft

GOP leadership has taken a new level of caution with their Obamacare legislation

(CNN) Kentucky Republican Sen. Rand Paul marched to the House side of the Capitol Thursday morning, knocked on a locked door and demanded to see a copy of the House's bill to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, which he believed was being kept under lock and key.

Aides in the room told the senator -- before dozens of reporters in a crowded hallway -- that there was no bill to see. In fact, it wasn't the room where GOP members of the Energy and Commerce Committee were told to meet with staff to review the current draft of their bill at all. But that did little to dissuade Paul, openly critical to the House Republican leadership's preferred path on the process, from making his underlying point.

"This should be an open and transparent process," Paul said. "This is being presented as if it were a national secret, as if this was a plot to invade another country, as if this were national security. That's wrong."

Paul ventured to the House Thursday afternoon after reports surfaced that House Republicans on the Energy and Commerce Committee were being granted an opportunity to review the current draft of the Obamacare repeal legislation and ask questions behind closed doors.

Opposed to the House legislation's principles, Paul said he wanted to see the bill himself even though he didn't serve on the committee.

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