“We’re looking at all options...” said Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn. | Getty Congress Senate GOP reassesses plan on Obamacare repeal Republicans may remove a Planned Parenthood provision if that will help things along.

Senate Republicans are considering significant changes to their proposal to repeal Obamacare and defund Planned Parenthood and will temporarily delay consideration of the measure to ensure it can pass the Senate.

GOP leaders are even mulling removing the Planned Parenthood provision if it gets them closer to putting Obamacare repeal on the president’s desk. They need just a majority of votes to pass the legislation, but Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and his team are being squeezed between moderates balking at the Planned Parenthood language and a trio of conservatives that say the Obamacare repeal language doesn’t go far enough.


“We’re looking at all options. It’s about 51,” said Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn (R-Texas) after a closed-door leadership meeting on Monday night. “[When] we get a clear idea from the parliamentarian what’s a go, and what’s a no go, we’ll start rounding up the vote.”

The 54-member Republican majority got its first ruling from the parliamentarian last week, which found that the Planned Parenthood language withstood scrutiny but repeal of the individual and business mandates as passed by the House would need to be rewritten. The parliamentarian's ruling is being kept closely by both parties, though Democrats say the GOP’s hopes of easy passage of Obamacare have been doomed.

Republicans say that's not the case and are confident they will eventually prevail, but they admit work remains. They’d originally been aiming to pass reconciliation this month, but they now plan to use next week’s Thanksgiving recess to get the measure ready to pass the Senate and accrue 51 votes.

What has not been decided is whether the proposal will turn into a straight-out attack on Obamacare and lose language stripping Planned Parenthood of funding. Senators said they could try a different legislative vehicle to force that fight should they back down on reconciliation to keep moderates on board.

“The primary purpose of this bill is Obamacare repeal,” said Sen. John Thune of South Dakota, the No. 3 Senate Republican. “We need to make sure we get 51 votes to get Obamacare repealed. So if [Planned Parenthood] gets in the way of that at this point we’ll have to take a look at it.”

GOP senators Mike Lee of Utah, Marco Rubio of Florida and Ted Cruz of Texas all oppose the reconciliation measure as currently written, leaving McConnell little room for error once the proposal passes muster with the parliamentarian. And even getting there is going to take major work.

“It’s an iterative process. In other words she’s not going to give us a blueprint,” Cornyn said of the back-and-forth with Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough. “She gives us guidance and then we try to meet the guidance in order to try to eliminate problems.”

Republican aides say the procedural issues involving the mandates can be easily solved with new language that would make the provisions comply with Senate rules, though they have yet to say publicly how that would be done.

Seung Min Kim contributed to this report.