McConnell reportedly promises to have at least one woman in all health-care meetings

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) promised Republican colleagues that all special working group meetings about the American Health Care Act will not be 100 percent male, an unnamed GOP lawmaker told The Hill in a report published Friday.

"The leader has assured us that at least one of the women will attend all of the meetings going forward," the legislator said. "He basically told the lunch that everyone in the caucus was invited," explained another unnamed working group member. "He told the lunch that everyone in the caucus, including the women, can come." Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.), and Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) are known to have attended recent health-care meetings.

This assurance comes after congressional Republicans came under criticism for holding health-care reform negotiations with no women involved. McConnell's original working group list of senators who would craft the Senate version of the AHCA featured 13 men and no women. There are only 21 women in the Senate, of whom just five are Republicans and therefore likely to be invited to work on the GOP bill.

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