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Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), a leading conservative in the U.S. Senate and driving force on the healthcare debate that has played out this year, told Breitbart News exclusively on Tuesday he is pleased that the U.S. Senate is going to move forward on efforts to pass a clean partial repeal of Obamacare. Paul, one of the four GOP U.S. Senators who publicly opposed the Senate health bill that aimed to simultaneously repeal and replace Obamacare leading to its eventual demise, has been driving debate on healthcare in the U.S. Congress. In the wake of the Senate bill’s ultimate failure on...

An amendment is under consideration that maybe, just maybe, could unlock the whole Senate Republican health bill. It might knock over the dominoes necessary for a deal, starting with regulations, moving to tax subsidies, and ending up with more cash for Medicaid and fewer tax cuts for the rich. It comes with big long-term risks for Americans who have high medical costs — and it could ultimately shift the burden of covering the uninsured further way from middle-class Americans who already have insurance, and more onto predominantly wealthy taxpayers. Its author? Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas. Senate conservatives have been...

Thursday on Fox News Channel’s “Fox & Friends,” Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) said he and his GOP colleagues in the Senate were still at “impasse” on the legislation being considered to repeal and replace Obamacare. “I still sense we’re at impasse,” Paul said. “And I said yesterday at lunch with our Republican caucus and everybody kind of laughed because there is still quite a bit of disagreement. There’s basically two factions. There’s conservatives like myself who don’t want new federal programs, we want to repeal Obamacare. And then there’s some of the moderates who kind of want to keep some...

Anthem, one of the largest health insurers in the country, endorsed the Senate healthcare bill, saying that it will stabilize the individual insurance market and lower premiums. Anthem declared that the Senate bill “will markedly improve the stability of the individual market and moderate premium increases.” Anthem credits the bill’s $100 billion stabilization fund, eliminating a tax on health insurance plans, and the bill’s work toward “aligning premium subsidies with premium costs.” Anthem also criticized the bill’s changes to Medicaid. It added that “the challenges the current bill proposes to the Medicaid program knowing how important it is to achieve...

One of the central campaign promises of Republicans since 2010, which has helped them sweep elections nationwide including the White House last year, has been their vow to repeal and replace Obamacare with a customer-centered, free market solution. Indeed, the promise was likely a significant reason some reluctant voters chose to vote for Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton last year. And once Trump won the White House, he continued to promise a repeal and replace of Obamacare would come in the immediate days of his presidency. However, the initial effort by House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and the White House...

The health-care proposal unveiled by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on Thursday came under immediate attack from conservative and centrist Republican senators as well as industry officials, casting the bill’s viability into doubt even as GOP leaders plan to bring it to a final vote next week. The 142-page bill, which McConnell (R-Ky.) released after weeks of drafting it in secrecy, drew swift criticism from hard-right senators who argued it does not go far enough in undoing Barack Obama’s signature health-care law — the Affordable Care Act. It also prompted an outcry from centrist senators and medical organizations worried that...

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is tempering expectations that the Senate will pass an overhaul of the nation’s healthcare system, promising his colleagues a vote but not success. McConnell in his public comments and private conversations about the ObamaCare repeal and replace bill is painting a more sober picture than Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), who in March guaranteed passage through the House.

Mitch McConnell has put the Senate Obamacare Repeal and Replace Bill in the leadership of Ted Cruz. McConnell has appointed a GOP Working Group led by Cruz to write a Repeal and Replace Bill. This process bypasses the Senate Committees. This new Senate Bill will go directly to the Senate floor for a vote.

Republican senators say they don’t see a way to get healthcare reform over the finish line, even if the House passes a bill this week. A senior GOP senator said the chances of getting 51 votes for legislation based on the House healthcare bill are less than 1 in 5.

Senate Republicans said Thursday they won't vote on the House-passed bill to repeal and replace Obamacare, but will write their own legislation instead. A Senate proposal is now being developed by a 12-member working group. It will attempt to incorporate elements of the House bill, senators said, but will not take up the House bill as a starting point and change it through the amendment process. ...

Doesn’t really matter. This is a game of hot potato at this point. The Freedom Caucus took the blame, fairly or not, for tanking the original House health-care bill last month. Now they’ve hatched an amendment that makes the bill more palatable to conservatives, letting states waive the federal mandates for Essential Health Benefits and community rating subject to certain conditions, but which does little to make it more appealing to Republican moderates. The stuff that would make it more palatable to them, like rolling back planned cuts to Medicaid, isn’t in the new version and would only spook...