Senator Joni Ernst.
Republican Senator Joni Ernst is urging GOP leaders in the Senate to embrace “transparency” and give the public a chance to review the Senate GOP’s alternative health care bill before the senate votes on the plan.
“Hopefully, we will be able to have a time period where we do receive feedback after the language is released,” she said today during a conference call with Iowa reporters.
Ernst is among the Republicans in the U.S. Senate who’ve been meeting privately to come up with an alternative to the health care bill that passed the U.S. House in April. However, Ernst told reporters there’s no document, yet, to release.
“‘We don’t have languague,” Ernst said. “And what I am hoping is that language that will be presented to us includes all of the items in discussions that we have had in our informal work group.”
Earlier this week, Ernst sat beside President Trump at a White House meeting to discuss the health care bill. President Trump reportedly called the bill that passed the House “mean.” Ernst isn’t joining Trump and offering a negative analysis of the House bill, but Ernst said Republican senators “will make the revisions necessary.”
“We really have been working on our own thoughts and ideas in the senate, in our informal work group,” Ernst said. “We are making sure that we are representing our constituents in our own home states and find a way that we can best serve those constituents.”
Unlike the House bill, Ernst suggested Senate Republicans are going to try to find a way to make sure Americans don’t lose their insurance policies because of pre-existing conditions. Ernst said Iowans tell her affordability is their number one concern when it comes to health insurance.