Story highlights Sasse first suggested the option in a letter to President Donald Trump on Thursday

Mitch McConnell said he will stick to the path of trying to accomplish both simultaneously

(CNN) Nebraska Sen. Ben Sasse on Sunday clarified his suggestion that lawmakers "repeal and then replace" Obamacare, saying if Republicans can't agree on a replacement plan in the next week or so, they should repeal the law "with a delay" and then agree on a replacement plan later.

"If Leader McConnell can get us across the finish line in a combined repeal and replace, I'd like to see that happen," the Republican freshman senator said in an interview with Jake Tapper on CNN's "State of the Union." "It needs to be a good replace, but if we can do a combined repeal and replace over the next week that's great. If we can't, though, then there's no reason to walk away. We should do repeal with a delay — let's be clear, I don't want to see anybody thrown off the coverage they have now. I would want to delay so that we can get straight to work."

Sasse first suggested the option of repealing and then replacing the Affordable Care Act, President Barack Obama's signature health care law, in a letter to President Donald Trump on Thursday — an idea that Trump also voiced, but was met by criticism from both Republicans and Democrats who worried that it could harm Americans by leaving them without coverage.

"On July 10, if we don't have agreement on a combined repeal and replace plan, we should immediately vote again on H.R. 3762, the December 2015 ObamaCare repeal legislation that the Congress passed but President Obama vetoed," Sasse wrote in the letter. "We should include a year-long implementation delay to give comfort to Americans currently on ObamaCare that a replacement plan will be enacted before expiration."

Later that day, Trump tweeted, "If Republican Senators are unable to pass what they are working on now, they should immediately REPEAL, and then REPLACE at a later date!"

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