Republicans unveiled their long-awaited legislation to repealand replace the Affordable Care Act, proposing to phase out keyparts of the law over several years as they try to break astalemate between moderates and conservatives in their party.

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Related: GOP needs Trump's salesmanship to advance new ACAplan

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Called the American Health Care Act, the House Republicans’proposal includes a refundable, age-based tax credit to help peoplebuy insurance. It ends Obamacare’s requirement to have coverage,and would eventually eliminate many taxes used to fund the 2010law. Other changes, like a wind-down of an expansion of Medicaid,are phased in over a period of years.

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It’s not clear whether the proposal can win the support of Houseconservatives or clear the Senate -- where Republicans hold a thinmajority and are relying on a fast-track legislative procedure fullof limitations. President Donald Trump, who has eschewed detailedpolicy proposals in favor of tweets and broad promises about betterhealth care for less money, touted the plan Tuesday on Twitter:“Our wonderful new Healthcare Bill is now out for review andnegotiation. ObamaCare is a complete and total disaster - isimploding fast!”

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“Don’t worry, getting rid of state lines, which will promotecompetition, will be in phase 2 & 3 of healthcare rollout,”Trump added. He also said he was working on “a new system wherethere will be competition in the Drug Industry. Pricing for theAmerican people will come way down!”

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Seven years after Republicans began promising repeal, theproposal is the most comprehensive look yet at how the GOP willapproach replacing the health law, which brought coverage to anestimated 20 million people. Republicans have blamed the ACA forrising insurance premiums and high out-of-pocket costs, andcriticized its requirement that everyone have health insurance orpay a penalty.

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Related: Opposition grows to repeal of ACA

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A CNN/ORC poll released Tuesday found that Americans are splitover Obamacare’s mandate to obtain coverage or pay a penalty, with50 percent opposed to removing the requirement, while 48 percentfavor removal. Other recent opinion polls have shown rising supportfor the Affordable Care Act since Trump’s election.

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Republican splits

The proposal released Monday night represents an attempt toappease different factions within the Republican Party. Democratswere excluded entirely from the bill’s drafting, and havecomplained that it was written in secret.

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Related: Former GOP House speaker thinks ACA system willstay

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While conservatives have pushed for full, immediate repeal, oneconcern among some moderate Republicans is that too-sudden changeswould callously toss people out of coverage right away --particularly those in Medicaid, the federal-state program for thepoor that was expanded under Obamacare.

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Estimates of how many people would be covered under theRepublican plan in comparison to Obamacare are not yetavailable.

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“I don’t think it’s fair to want to compare what we’re proposingtoday to what Obamacare might have been,” White House budgetdirector Mick Mulvaney told NBC News Tuesday morning. “You have tocompare it to what Obamacare is. And it’s a failure. By thatcomparison, this new program is going to be a tremendoussuccess.”

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Under Obamacare, the proportion of Americans without healthinsurance fell to a record low in 2015. Just 10.5 percent ofAmericans younger than 65 lacked coverage, down from 18.2 percentin 2010, before the law’s coverage expansions began.

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Members of the House Freedom Caucus and Kentucky Senator RandPaul quickly voiced their objections to the Republican replacementbill, dismissing it as “Obamacare Lite” and not the fuller overhaulof federal health care law they believe is needed.

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“It won’t work. Premiums and prices will continue to spiral outof control,” Paul said Tuesday on Fox News, adding on Twitter thatthe “House leadership plan” won’t pass.

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Paul said he was heartened by Trump’s tweet that the bill wasjust a starting point for negotiations. “I think he’s open-mindedon this” and realizes “conservatives have a lot of objections” tothe House GOP bill, he said on Fox.

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A staff analysis prepared for the Republican Study Committee, aninfluential group of House conservatives, called the refundable taxcredits “a Republican welfare entitlement.”

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But the committee’s chairman, Representative Mark Walker ofNorth Carolina, who had criticized earlier drafts of the bill, saidthe legislation had moved "in the right direction" and that hisgroup’s steering committee will meet Tuesday evening to considerthe changes.

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“We are carefully reviewing this legislation looking in threemain areas of shared conservative concern: protection of theunborn, elimination of Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion and ensuringthe tax credits are fiscally responsible,” Walker said in astatement.

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Republican Mark Meadows, also of North Carolina and chairman ofthe House Freedom Caucus said they too will meet Tuesday to discussthe legislation.

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One senior Republican suggested that under his party’s bill,Americans would have to pay a larger share of their own health carecosts.

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“Americans have choices, and they’ve got to make a choice,”Representative Jason Chaffetz of Utah, the chairman of theOversight Committee, said on CNN Tuesday. “So rather than gettingthat new iPhone that they just love and want to go spend hundredsof dollars on that, maybe they should invest in their own healthcare.”

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Medicaid expansion

Senator Shelley Moore Capito, a West Virginia Republican who hadthreatened not to support the proposal if Medicaid wasn’taddressed, said, “It’s moving in the right direction.”

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Related: Poll shoes Americans want Medicaid expansionretained

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“It looks like they’ve moved toward a better transition period,more flexibilities for the governors and ability for the Medicaidexpansion population to have the assurance that they’re not goingto be left out in the cold,” she said.

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House Speaker Paul Ryan said in a statement the plan is designedto “drive down costs, encourage competition, and give everyAmerican access to quality, affordable health insurance.”

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Health industry groups were measured in their responses.America’s Health Insurance Plans, which represents the insuranceindustry, said in a statement that "by working collaboratively andin a bipartisan manner with policymakers and the administration,together we can improve health care in our nation."

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Hospitals in states that have expanded Medicaid under Obamacarebenefited from reductions in the number of patients they had totreat who couldn’t pay their bills, called uncompensated care. Theyhave the most to lose if the expansion is rolled back.

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But the Republican bill would restore cuts to a federal programthat pays extra money to hospitals that care for large numbers ofpatients without insurance or on Medicaid. That would benefithospitals operating in states that chose not to expandMedicaid.

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“This is more positive for hospitals,” particularly those withMedicaid exposure, like Community Health Systems Inc. and TenetHealthcare Corp., Sheryl Skolnick, director of research at MizuhoFinancial Group Inc., said in a note Tuesday to clients.

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Bill details

A copy of the bill is available here, and two House committeeswill begin debating it on Wednesday.

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Key provisions include:

• An advanceable, refundable tax credit to help buy insurance forindividuals, that phases out for people making more than $75,000($150,000 for a couple filing jointly). The credit starts at $2,000per person and grows to $4,000 with age. A family can get as muchas $14,000 in total.

• Immediately ends a requirement that individuals have insurancecoverage and another rule that requires some businesses to offercoverage to their workers.

• Expands the allowable size of health-care savings accounts thatcan be coupled with high-deductible insurance plans, as much as$6,550 for an individual or $13,100 for a family, nearly twice thelimit for 2017 under current law.

• Winds down Obamacare’s expansion of Medicaid. Changes it to aper-capita system, where states are given a set amount for thenumber of people in categories including the disabled, elderly,childless adults and pregnant mothers.

• Allows people with pre-existing conditions to buy insurance, butrequires “continuous” coverage to discourage people from buying itonly when they get sick. Individuals who go uninsured for longerthan a set period face 30 percent higher premiums as a penalty.

• Gives states a $100 billion fund over a decade to helplower-income people afford insurance, and to help stabilize stateinsurance markets. The fund could be used to help lower patients’out of pocket costs or to promote access to preventiveservices.

• Delays until 2025, instead of permanently repealing, a tax onhigh-cost health insurance plans.

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No cost estimate

There was no estimate of how much the bill will cost, creating arisk for Republicans as they move forward. The proposal is paid forfor by eventually repealing Obamacare’s expansion of Medicaid,cutting insurance subsidies and by keeping, but delaying, a tax onhigh-cost insurance plans.

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Related: ACA repeal would put budget in the red by$350B

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“You want to know it’s fiscally responsible,” Senator BillCassidy, a Louisiana Republican, said in an interview. “You want toknow the taxpayer can’t get hosed, without gimmicks, right? Andyou’d want to know that folks, that President Trump, who said hewants as many people covered, you’d want to see his pledgefulfilled, at a lower cost."

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Two Senate Republicans -- Susan Collins of Maine and LisaMurkowski of Alaska -- oppose eliminating federal funding forPlanned Parenthood, a provision of the House bill. And at leastfour Senate Republicans -- enough to sink the bill in their chamber-- have said they will oppose legislation that would leave peoplewho gained coverage under Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion withoutinsurance.

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“Congressional Republicans are leading a desperate forced marchto pass a dangerous bill written in secret which few members ofCongress have seen, let alone read,” Senator Ron Wyden, an OregonDemocrat, said in a statement Monday night.

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Democrats also argued that people currently covered underObamacare would be worse off.

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“The Republican repeal bill would charge them more money forless care,” representatives Frank Pallone of New Jersey and RichardNeal of Massachusetts said in a statement. They are the top twoDemocrats on the House Energy and Commerce Committee and Ways andMeans Committee, respectively.

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