WASHINGTON – U.S. Senate leaders said Tuesday the chamber will vote Thursday on U.S. Sen. Bill Cassidy’s health care legislation, calling it the Republican response to a Democratic proposal to extend tax credits that 24.3 million working Americans and small businesses – nearly 300,000 of whom live in Louisiana – use to buy health insurance.

The legislation, which was officially released Tuesday, is cosponsored by Cassidy, R-Baton Rouge, and Sen. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho.

Cassidy chairs the Senate Health Education Labor and Pensions committee and Crapo chairs the Senate Finance Committee, the two panels that oversee the Affordable Care Act.

Sen. Majority Leader John Thune, R-South Dakota, told reporters Monday that he favored the Cassidy-Crapo proposal as the Republicans’ entrée into the ext

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