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PAUL RYAN: The Senate should take 'a month or 2' to pass the GOP healthcare bill

"Hopefully it takes a month or two because we need to give people the ability to plan," House Speaker Paul Ryan told "Fox and Friends" on Tuesday.

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House Speaker Paul Ryan on Tuesday said he was confident that the GOP healthcare bill would quickly make its way through the Republican-controlled Senate.

In an interview with "Fox and Friends," Ryan said that despite a stop-and-start process in the House, he expected the Republican healthcare bill, the American Health Care Act, to flow through the Senate.

"The legislation should not take that long," Ryan said. "Hopefully it takes a month or two to get it through the Senate. Hopefully it takes a month or two because we need to give people the ability to plan. Insurers are pulling out very, very quickly, and we need to show the insurers that there is a better system coming."

Insurers in states like Iowa and Virginia have announced exits from some of the Affordable Care Act's individual insurance markets in recent weeks. They have cited financial losses and political uncertainty — specifically the unsure future of the AHCA and the possibility that key payments from the Trump administration could be cut off — as reasons for their exits.

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Asked by the Fox hosts whether the bill would be complete by the fall, Ryan responded affirmatively but cautioned that it could take a few years to implement the legislation.

But while Ryan predicted a quick turnaround on the legislation, Republicans in the Senate are still ironing out numerous thorny issues.

For one, Senate GOP leaders have decided to write their own version of the healthcare bill instead of trying to pass the version introduced by the House GOP. Also, Republicans can afford to lose only two votes in the Senate to get the bill through and must satisfy a wide array of viewpoints within the caucus.

Ryan acknowledged the wide range of views among the Senate Republicans but called it a strength rather than a hurdle. Ryan also addressed some Republican House members' acknowledgment that they had not read the AHCA in its entirety, often leaving it up to staff members.

"Our bill was online for a couple of months — the last amendment was a three-page amendment," Ryan said. "Obamacare was over 2,000 pages. Our bill is less than 200 pages. Ours was posted only for over a month — any American, anyone in the world, could read this bill."

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The original version of the AHCA text was posted March 24, but most Democratic criticism has stemmed from what Democrats say is lack of understanding about later additions to the bill. One key amendment — which authorized $8 billion in funding for state healthcare programs — was released to the public less than 24 hours before the bill eventually advanced through the House. The Congressional Budget Office's score assessing the bill's effects also was not released before the House passed the bill.

Ryan dismissed the idea that elected officials and the public had not gotten a chance to fully understand the bill as "the left trying to throw sand in the gears" of repealing and replacing the ACA.

Watch Ryan's comments below:

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