Where Is Obamacare Bill? Republicans Hiding Secret Repeal Plan From Democrats, Public

Republicans have long been torn over how they would repeal and replace Obamacare, but now the GOP reportedly has a plan. Except House Republicans do not want to share the potential plan with their own membership or Democrats, The Hill reported Thursday.

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) took to his official Twitter account to blast House Republicans for keeping the possible plan “under lock and key.”

Paul also claimed Republicans were acting clandestinely because they were afraid of the perception that the bill would be barely different than Obamacare, which President Donald Trump vowed to repeal and replace on the campaign trail, during his transition to the White House and most recently Tuesday during his first joint address to Congress.

Paul’s tweet was quickly followed by House Minority Whip and Democratic Rep. Steny Hoyer, who’s evidently leading a charge to find the bill on Capitol Hill and broadcasting the search on Facebook Live.

Bloomberg News later reported that a crowd of press may have identified the bill’s location, causing a raucous outside the room. However, a chairman for the House Ways and Means Committee later claimed the bill wasn’t present and a Rep. Frank Pallone (D-N.J.) suggested it was moved elsewhere.

Paul had said on Twitter that he was heading to the room to obtain a copy for the American people, and even brought his own copy machine, with press surrounding him.

The reasoning behind such secrecy may be linked to the leaking of a previous draft of the bill by Politico last week. Leading Republicans scrambled earlier this week after Republican Study Committee chair Mark Walker (R-N.C.) ripped apart the leaked copy, though Republican House Majority Whip Steve Scalise later clarified that the released copy was old, dating back to roughly Feb. 10, and it wasn’t the one the GOP was presently working off of.

That plan called for cutting out Obamacare’s subsidies program, the expansion of Medicaid and nixing the individual mandate, the cause of much ire from both sides of the aisle as well as Americans who use the government-issued health plan.