--- title: AHCA: Senate Health Care Bill in Jeopardy as GOP Opposes It description: Sen. Rand Paul says he and three other Republican senators are preparing to announced their opposition to the Senate health care bill. canonical: https://time.com/4829024/ahca-senate-bill-rand-paul-ted-cruz-gop-opposition/ author: Alana Abramson article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2017-06-22T18:14:50.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-23T16:16:50.401Z article:section: Politics og:title: 4 Republican Senators Say They're Opposed to the GOP Health Care Bill og:description: But they're willing to negotiate og:url: https://time.com/4829024/ahca-senate-bill-rand-paul-ted-cruz-gop-opposition/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt103304edd4bd4cd4/6988d2ea0a4a22947e9cebf4/rand-paul-senate-bill-opposition.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 4928 og:image:height: 2772 og:image:alt: US-POLITICS-SENATE-JUSTICE og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: 4 Republican Senators Say They're Opposed to the GOP Health Care Bill twitter:description: But they're willing to negotiate twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt103304edd4bd4cd4/6988d2ea0a4a22947e9cebf4/rand-paul-senate-bill-opposition.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # 4 Republican Senators Say They're Opposed to the GOP Health Care Bill > Sponsored content. 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Brief is TIME's Washington newsletter, written by senior correspondent Philip Elliott. It explains the politics, personalities and power dynamics behind the headlines, three times a week. It reaches 85,000 subscribers with a 37.0% open rate as of August 2026. #### Where can I get analysis of Washington politics by email? D.C. Brief is TIME's free Washington politics newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. It is written by a TIME senior correspondent who covers the capital full time. #### Who writes TIME's D.C. Brief? Philip Elliott, a senior correspondent at TIME, writes D.C. Brief. #### Is D.C. Brief free? Yes. D.C. Brief is free at time.com/newsletters.  by [Alana Abramson](https://time.com/author/alana-abramson/)  ## Alana Abramson Jun 22, 2017 6:14 PM UTC  US Republican Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky speaks to reporters at the Capitol in Washington, DC, on April 7, 2017. US Republican Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky speaks to reporters at the Capitol in Washington, DC, on April 7, 2017. NICHOLAS KAMM—AFP/Getty Images  by [Alana Abramson](https://time.com/author/alana-abramson/)  ## Alana Abramson Jun 22, 2017 6:14 PM UTC Four GOP Senators have come out in opposition to the [Republican health care bill](http://time.com/4794400/health-care-premiums/), just hours after it was publicly released Thursday morning. Sens. [Ted Cruz, ](http://time.com/4681033/ted-cruz-bat-crap-crazy-transcript/)Ron Johnson, [Rand Paul](http://time.com/4758100/rand-paul-dystopian-novels-george-washington-class/) and Mike Lee said they are not ready to vote for the bill yet, but are receptive to negotiations and more information. Democrats are expected to universally vote against the bill, meaning Republicans will likely need 50 of their 52 Senators to pass the bill. The objections of these four Senators already puts them at a deficit, and several other Senators said they needed to review the legislation before they could make some sort of decision. “There are provisions in this draft that represent an improvement to our current health care system but it does not appear this draft as written will accomplish the most important promise that we made to Americans: to repeal Obamacare and lower their health care costs,” the Senators said in a joint statement. Two of these Senators were part of the 13 person working group that worked to draft the bill, [according to the _New York Times._](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/06/19/us/where-senators-stand-on-health-care.html) Lee had expressed frustration earlier this week, writing in a Facebook video that he hadn’t seen the legislation, even though he was supposed to be working on it. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4829024/ahca-senate-bill-rand-paul-ted-cruz-gop-opposition/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4829024/ahca-senate-bill-rand-paul-ted-cruz-gop-opposition/"},"headline":"4 Republican Senators Say They're Opposed to the GOP Health Care Bill","datePublished":"2017-06-22T18:14:50.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-23T16:16:50.401Z","description":"But they're willing to negotiate","url":"https://time.com/4829024/ahca-senate-bill-rand-paul-ted-cruz-gop-opposition/","keywords":["Congress","Health Care","onetime"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt103304edd4bd4cd4/6988d2ea0a4a22947e9cebf4/rand-paul-senate-bill-opposition.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Alana Abramson","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/alana-abramson/"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt103304edd4bd4cd4/6988d2ea0a4a22947e9cebf4/rand-paul-senate-bill-opposition.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"US-POLITICS-SENATE-JUSTICE","caption":"US-POLITICS-SENATE-JUSTICE","creditText":"NICHOLAS KAMM—AFP/Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/politics/","name":"Politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/congress/","name":"Congress"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4829024/ahca-senate-bill-rand-paul-ted-cruz-gop-opposition/","name":"4 Republican Senators Say They're Opposed to the GOP Health Care Bill"}}]}] ```