The Republican bill is aimed at fulfilling President Donald Trump's pledge to repeal the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, the signature health insurance achievement of former President Barack Obama.
Vice President Mike Pence can break any 50-50 tie in the Senate, but with Sen. Supporters say that this will allow Americans to have more flexibility when choosing their healthcare plans - for example, men wouldn't have to pay for plans offering maternity care - while critics argue that such a bill will leave people with pre-existing conditions with "virtually no real insurance".
"The other night, I was very surprised when I heard a couple of my friends, my friends - they really were and are - they might not be very much longer", Trump said of Sens.
At a White House lunch, Trump exhorted Republican senators to vote for the repeal, saying any Republican who voted against it was telling voters they were "fine with Obamacare".
According to the CBO, a nonpartisan office that analyzes pending legislation, 17 million Americans would lose health insurance alone in 2018 with a repeal while premiums on individual insurance plans would rise 25 percent next year and double by 2026. The measure, similar to a 2015 bill passed by the Senate, would save $473 billion over a decade. On Wednesday, the Senate unveiled a bill that would do that, but would delay its implementation by two years to give lawmakers time to devise a replacement plan.
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But the CBO said the revised version of the bill did little to change the underlying problem: The bill would lead people to lose their health care coverage and increase costs for certain subsets of the population.
The analysis could complicate matters for the divided Republicans, who shelved the bill on Monday after four senators said they could not support it.
On Wednesday, the CBO issued a report that estimated the effects of another Senate bill, which would repeal most of Obamacare without immediately replacing it with a new health-care law.
"People are hurting. Inaction is not an option, and, frankly, I don't think we should leave town unless we have a health insurance plan", the president told the senators during a lunch he held in the White House State Dining Room to cajole their votes. Senator Lamar Alexander chairman of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee also said that he doubted if there would be 40 votes in favour of only repeal and no replacement. It has been advanced as an alternative to the stalled Better Care Reconciliation Act, which would repeal and replace the law known as Obamacare.
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