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U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said on Monday the Senate will move to repeal President Barack Obama's healthcare law shortly after Jan. 1, but declined to give a timeline for a plan to replace it. (Zengerle, 12/12)

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on Monday indicated that Republicans won’t be putting forth their alternative to the Affordable Care Act before repealing parts of the health care law. “We’re going to move forward first, first with the Obamacare replacement resolution,” the Kentucky Republican said at a Capitol Hill press conference. “What comes next is what comes next.” (McIntire, 12/12)

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on Monday confirmed that Republicans will take steps early next year to repeal aspects of President Barack Obama’s signature health law before a replacement system is put in place. His comments come as some GOP lawmakers in Congress have said a blueprint for replacement should be established before any repeal action is taken to gut the 2010 health care overhaul (PL 111-148, PL 111-152). “We will move right after the first of the year on an Obamacare [repeal] resolution and then we will work expeditiously to come up with a better proposal than current law,” the Kentucky Republican told reporters. (Williams, 12/12)

Republicans in Congress say they'll vote to repeal much of the Affordable Care Act early next year — even though they don't yet have a plan to replace it. But they also insist that they don't want to harm any of the millions of people who got their health insurance under the law. (Kodjak, 12/12)

Though Republicans are itching to start on their promises to “repeal and replace” the Affordable Care Act, many of them worry about repercussions if the process stalls or takes too long. ... A new health care law might not take effect for up to three years, The Associated Press reported, in order to give Congress and President-elect Donald Trump enough time to come up with a feasible replacement. In the meantime, the uncertainty could leave Republican members up for reelection vulnerable. ... “There needs to be a reasonable transition period so people don’t have the rug pulled out from under them,” House Speaker Paul D. Ryan told reporters last week. But not all Republicans see eye to eye on the proposed time frame. (Braun, 12/12)

Rep. Peter King said he is meeting with President-elect Donald Trump later in the week to talk about the president's agenda. The New York Republican said the Trump team has shown a willingness to take on the Affordable Care Act early in the administration, a priority of his and other Republicans. (Dawsey, 12/12)

Red-state Senate Democrats are resisting the urge to vote for an Obamacare repeal to bolster their conservative bona fides — even those hailing from states where Donald Trump won big. While the united Democratic front won't change the likely outcome of a repeal vote — because Republicans will only need a simple majority of votes for repeal under the procedure they plan on using — keeping defections to a minimum may offer a measure of political victory for Democrats. And a strong vote against the GOP repeal means Democrats can highlight the lack of a plausible GOP replacement plan. (Haberkorn, 12/12)

A coalition of groups fighting ObamaCare repeal is launching a “seven-figure” ad-buy in selected states warning against the dangers of scrapping the law without a replacement. The coalition is called the Alliance for Healthcare Security, and includes liberal advocacy groups like Families USA and Physicians for a National Health Program. The print and digital ads are targeted to Alaska, Arizona, Maine, Nevada, Tennessee and Washington, D.C. (Sullivan, 12/12)

With a stroke of his pen on Tuesday, President Barack Obama will commit billions of dollars in federal funds to boost medical research, including money for Vice President Joe Biden’s “moonshot” to cure cancer. But the budget increase for the National Institutes of Health authorized in the 21st Century Cures Act is smaller than hoped for by some conservative lawmakers, including Rep. Kevin Yoder and Sen. Jerry Moran of Kansas and Missouri Sen. Roy Blunt. The three Republicans say the bill doesn’t go far enough, and they’ll keep working to build up the NIH’s budget. (Wise, 12/12)

GOP leaders of the House Energy and Commerce and Senate Finance committees are pressing the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services for more information about when agency officials first realized a popular allergy treatment was misclassified in the Medicaid program. CMS revealed earlier this year that Mylan’s EpiPen, which was at the center of a drug pricing controversy, had been classified as a generic drug in the program, instead of a brand name drug. That means Mylan has potentially paid millions of dollars less than it should have to state Medicaid programs and to the federal government. (McIntire, 12/12)