The day after the American Health Care Act (AHCA) was passed in the US House of Representatives, a group of Republican senators are at work on a version they hope will pass in the Senate. The revisions are expected to be so substantial that the senators crafting the legislation are reportedly not even bothering starting with the text approved in the House, and instead will begin by drafting a health care bill from scratch.
The list of 13 senators working on the bill was first reported by Bloomberg and confirmed to Quartz by a Senate aide:
- Tom Cotton of Arkansas
- Cory Gardner of Colorado
- Mitch McConnell of Kentucky
- Rob Portman of Ohio
- Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania
- John Thune of South Dakota
- John Cornyn of Texas
- Ted Cruz of Texas
- Lamar Alexander of Tennessee
- Orrin Hatch of Utah
- Mike Lee of Utah
- Mike Enzi of Wyoming
- John Barrasso of Wyoming
That’s right: Three Johns, two Mikes, no women.
Women senators, who make up one in five members of the chamber, are expected to play an important role in the debate—Republicans Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska have been openly critical of the bill that passed the House, and senate Republicans can’t afford to lose more than three votes and still pass the bill.
But given that women (and minorities) would be especially affected by the bill that passed in the House, it’s especially striking that the group trying to craft a bill that would be more palatable to more members would look like this:
