The American Health Care Act proposal is undergoing "refinements and improvements" as part of the regular legislative process," House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., told Fox Business on Wednesday.
"As we go through this, we're making refinements and improvements to the bill. That is occurring," Ryan told host Maria Bartiromo.
He then noted the Senate would get a chance to make changes to the bill once the House is done.
"Senators, they're not helpless to what the House does," Ryan said. "Once the House is done with this legislation, we pass it on to the Senate. Then they take it, and then they amend it if they want to amend it, and they do with the bill what they want to do with the bill, because that's how the legislative process works.
"We're making the kind of improvements and refinements that we think make this bill better. Now that we have our score from the CBO, that's something we were waiting for," Ryan said, referring to the Congressional Budget Office's analysis of the costs that would be involved with the bill. "Now that we've got it, we've got room to make refinements."
"The major components are staying intact," the House speaker added.
According to Ryan, the bill is a product of Congress and the White House working together, and working on the bill is a natural part of the process.
"This is the plan we ran on all of last year. This is the plan that we've been working — House, Senate, White House — together on, and now as we get closer to finish, going through the committee process, you inevitably make those refinements and improvements," Ryan said. "That's where we are right now."
He said "repeal and replace" is what Republicans ran on in the 2016 election, and this bill is a "very good start, an excellent start" to meet that goal.
Other reforms such as allowing interstate insurance shopping are not part of the bill, Ryan said, because Republicans know they do not have enough votes in the Senate to pass those measures.
Economist Larry Kudlow, writing Tuesday in The Atlantic, agreed the bill is a "very good first step."
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