Divisions emerge in the Senate on pre-existing conditions

Senate Republicans are showing early divisions over what to do about ObamaCare’s protections for people with pre-existing conditions.

Some conservatives, including Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), want to simply repeal those provisions and other ObamaCare regulations and leave them up to the states.

But advocates of a more centrist approach, like Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), are speaking out in favor of pre-existing condition protections and endorsing a “Jimmy Kimmel test” for the bill, where no one can be denied coverage.

Other senators are exploring a middle ground where states would have to automatically enroll people in health insurance before they could get a waiver for the regulations, though conservatives object to that idea as Washington overreach.

The disagreements over what to do about preexisting conditions point to the larger difficulty facing Senate Republicans as they seek to find consensus on a host of contentious issues in the healthcare bill.