Can Tom Price save Republicans from their Obamacare mess?

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Washington (CNN)Republican lawmakers entangled in endless disagreement about how to repeal Obamacare and waiting for leadership from the White House are optimistic they may have found their solution: newly-minted Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price.

But in the meeting Wednesday, Price kept his proposals big picture and did not offer many specifics on how to tackle the big hurdles that have kept lawmakers from coming to a consensus on Obamacare for seven years, lawmakers said. That’s a possible sign that Price and Trump want to leave the legislating to his former colleagues on the Hill. Ahead of his confirmation hearings last month, a transition source told CNN that Price was reticent to tout his own health care measure and wanted to avoid the appearance that he was asking lawmakers to endorse his ideas.

“We need more details,” said Republican Sen. Roger Wicker of Mississippi. “There are more wrinkles to be ironed out. If there weren’t, we’d be having a big old press conference today, I guess.”

Republican senators are still trying to get a sense of how Price will operate and how much he will defer to Trump. Price’s own Obamacare alternatives have included many of the same ideas Republicans are talking about now; high risk pools for the sick, health savings accounts, the ability to buy insurance across state lines and the option to buy bare-bones plans. However, Price’s own plans have also been considered by many to be too far right on the ideological spectrum.

Some members said that wasn’t an immediate concern.

“He’s taking orders now,” Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy said before the lunch. “It isn’t Tom Price, it is Donald Trump and Donald Trump has said he wants everybody covered, caring for those with pre-existing conditions without mandates, reduce costs. That’s his orders, so whatever Tom’s approach has to be adapted to Donald Trump’s, not vice versa, so I do think if you achieve the President’s goals, he will temper it to some extent.”

At the same time, Trump and the White House has been unclear at times about their marching orders to Congress. Early on, for instance, Trump called for “insurance for everybody” as well as protections for people with pre-existing conditions.

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