"They shut themselves out, they said they clearly were not gonna be part of anything," Bunt said on "Morning Newswatch" on local Missouri radio KZRG, CNN reported.

"There's no reason to spend a lot of time trying to negotiate with somebody who is not going to be for the repair that you're doing and the replacement that you're doing."

The measure includes deep cuts to Medicaid and fundamentally reshapes that program from an open-ended government commitment to a system of capped federal payments that limit federal spending.

Blunt said during the interview that Republicans in Washington had been working for months to find a plan that would get the support of half of the Senate.

"And also, because of that, we're having to do this under some restrained rules where it has to be more about spending than policy," he said, "and that's why you would be able to pass this with 50 senators and the Vice President or 51 senators."

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GOP senator: 'No reason' to try to work with Dems on healthcare - The Hill