SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (KELO AM) - With days remaining until the U.S. Senate may get the U.S. House Republican health care bill, Senator John Thune says the measure is passable but the House needs more amendments.
Thune says the House has to move it first, they have to figure out how to 216 votes for passage, but when it comes over to the Senate "we'll have an opportunity to work on it. And there are a number of senators who have things that they think will improve the bill."
Thune says this is the beginning of the process and it's all about building that coalition making it broad enough to where you get the necessary votes in the House and the 50 votes in the Senate, "with Mike Pence in the chair, and then something that's signable by the president.
Thune, in an interview with FOX News, says it's not lost on his colleagues how important it is to start the process of replacing Obamacare with a plan that works.
Thune says the status quo is not working. He says the American people have made it very clear that the skyrocketing premiums and deductibles and co-pays and out-of-pocket costs, "they can't live with that, they want us to do something about cost and that's what we're doing."
Thune says it will be tricky to appease every Republican in the House and Senate to create a health care bill everyone can agree on.
Republican Senators like Mike Lee, Ted Cruz and Rand Paul are still not convinced they can vote for the American Health Care Act.
