Although congressional Republicans uniformly believe something must be done about the Affordable Care Act, for the first time in six years, some Senate Republicans have indicated greater willingness to engage in conversations about amending the healthcare reform law instead of repealing it, according to the Morning Consult.
Should Hillary Clinton be elected president, a handful of Senate Republicans have said they would even be willing to work with her to hammer out a compromise. This marks a significant departure from the past six years, in which the GOP has unshakably demanded nothing short of a full repeal of the ACA.
Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) said there are two ways that action on the ACA could unfold, according to the Morning Consult. "One, if a Republican's elected, we're going to have to deliver on our promise to dramatically change the healthcare system," he said. "The second one is, if the Democrats elect a president, there's some changes — there's some bipartisan support — that ought to be made. But it'd have to have the White House support. So I think it's going to be pretty much driven by what Hillary would say."
While getting the Senate Republican Conference to agree on a set of proposed changes to the ACA would be challenging, even a partial retreat by a few influential committee chairmen could be significant enough to spur a compromise, according to the report.
"In the Senate there are at least eight to 10 of us who will work to make repairs to our healthcare system to provide more freedom and flexibility and lower costs," an unnamed senior GOP aide said in an email, according to the report. "If we don't win this presidential [election] we can't say, 'In four years we'll win and fix it then, suffer until then.'"
Congressional Democrats don't unanimously agree that something must absolutely be done about the ACA, saying the law will continue to work if it is left alone. However, they say it could always be improved and many have said they would like to work with Republicans on making that happen.
"I think there are things we can do to make it better. Some of them are within our grasp on a bipartisan basis," said Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), according to the report. "But you know, it all depends on whether Republicans have stopped — put an end to their scorched-earth approach."