GOP eyes Senate health care vote next week, amid grumbling
McConnell's ability to line up votes is considered masterful, and he's eager to pass legislation fulfilling a keystone campaign promise of President Donald Trump and countless GOP congressional candidates.
Aides and lobbyists said they expected the GOP bill to provide health care tax credits linked to people's incomes, not their ages like the House-passed measure, and impose spending limits on the growth of the federal-state Medicaid program for the poor that would tighten further by the mid-2020s.
The No. 3 Senate GOP leader, John Thune of South Dakota, said Republicans were moving toward phasing out Obama's enlargement of Medicaid to additional low-income people over five or six years.
Spicer offered no specifics but said Trump wants the Senate to "strengthen it, to make it more affordable, more accessible."
Besides Lee and Cruz, conservative Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., said it would be "a non-starter" if the developing bill's subsidies are as large as Obama's.