There is "zero" percent chance that the House healthcare bill will quickly pass a Senate vote without changes being made to it first, Sen. Bob Corker said Thursday morning.
"No. Zero. That's not the way it's going to work," Corker told MSNBC's "Morning Joe" program, estimating that it could take at least a month to go over the bill and make changes before sending it back.
"People over here want to make sure it's something that's going to work for the American people."
Healthcare reform has not been a major issue in the Senate so far, as "all of us are pretty much focused on other things until we get the bill," Corker said. Further, he said he has not been following much about what the House is doing on the measure, after the American Health Care Act was pulled from the chamber's floor last month.
The Senate has a working group of Republicans with a range of ideologies who are working to see where the bill will go when it does come across, and Corker predicted there will be "very responsible, deliberate action" taken on the measure.
"I don't see any way it comes back in the form it comes," the Tennessee Republican told the program. "It's not because I have any specific criticism . . . one of the things that people are going to focus on a great deal, knowing of the huge fiscal problems we have in our nation is the whole Medicaid reform piece."
Corker said he used to be his state's commissioner of finance, and believes Tennessee could have done "so much better in Medicaid if we just had the flexibility to serve our constituents in a better manner."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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