(CNN) Congressional Republicans struggling over how to repeal Obamacare are stuck on a key problem: what to do with the millions of people in 31 states covered under the dramatic expansion of Medicaid the law enabled. 
 
 So they have privately turned to a handful of governors to help resolve the issue -- including Wisconsin's Scott Walker and Ohio's John Kasich, according to several sources involved in the talks. The hope, according to congressional sources, is to let the governors cut a deal on an issue that directly impacts their states and let the White House and Republican leaders endorse the plan that eventually emerges. 
 
 The discussions underscore another key point: While President Donald Trump promises to soon unveil his own health care plan, lawmakers on Capitol Hill are drafting the bill -- while the Republican governors are likely to be the driving force behind the major entitlement reform over Medicaid coverage. 
 
 The stakes for Republicans are already high. At town halls this week, GOP lawmakers are getting earfuls from voters unhappy with possible rollbacks to Obamacare, and at times struggling to defend a replacement bill that doesn't yet exist. 
 
 At the center of the talks are four governors who have taken different approaches to Medicaid: Walker and Gov. Bill Haslam of Tennessee, whose states did not expand Medicaid under the law; and two governors from states that did: Kasich and Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval. The discussions are likely to continue at the National Governors Association meeting in Washington this week, and as Kasich privately meets later this week with Trump at the White House. 
 
 "There are 700,000 Ohioans who now get care who didn't have it before," Kasich told CNN's Jim Sciutto on Sunday's "State of the Union," defending his state's Medicaid expansion. "And to turn our back on them makes no sense." 
 
 The thinking is that if these four can cut a deal, it will help resolve an issue that GOP leaders say is currently the biggest hurdle in putting together a plan to repeal President Barack Obama's Affordable Care Act. But they have a monumental task: resolving concerns from conservatives who want to turn Medicaid into a block grant program and alleviate fears from politicians who hail from states that accepted federal dollars to expand coverage for low-income adults under Obamacare. 
 
 "We're going to have to find a solution that accommodates those concerns," House Speaker Paul Ryan said last week. 
 
 Republicans are hoping to unveil a plan in March that could be voted on within the next several weeks. They are under a time constraint because they are using fast-track budget rules that will allow them to avoid a filibuster in the Senate and pass a repeal bill on a party-line vote. 
 
 The party is still divided over key issues -- including how far to take the repeal bill. Conservatives in the House Freedom Caucus want to pass a full-blown repeal bill that mirrors a plan that Congress approved in 2015 -- and Obama vetoed -- which would also repeal the Medicaid expansion. 
 
 Yet top Senate Republicans privately say that such an approach would not pass their chamber. 
 
 Tax credits and health savings accounts 
 
 Moreover, a number of Republicans are demanding that the repeal bill also include some new provisions to help replace the law. As part of that approach, Republicans want to include in the repeal bill tax credits to help people purchase health insurance and reforms to Health Savings Accounts that would allow families to put more money into the accounts. 
 
 Yet, Senate budget rules limit how much of the health care law can be replaced through the process known as "reconciliation," meaning that the GOP will have to rely on skeptical Democrats to pass other health care bills and on Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price to take executive action on other fronts. 
 
 But several people involved in the discussions say the biggest challenge right now is how to resolve the Medicaid dilemma. The fear among many Republicans is that gutting the program could leave many low-income individuals in their states without health care coverage if there's no viable alternative to replace it. Republicans are considering a plan -- advocated by Ryan -- where states would receive federal funding based on a formula created by a state's per capita Medicaid population. 
 
 While it's uncertain where they'll come down, Walker's support is seen as critical since he could presumably help sell the deal to conservatives who want to gut the entitlement program altogether. 
 
 "Gov. Walker and other governors around the country are on the front lines of this effort," said Tom Evenson, a Walker spokesman. "And they want to partner with the federal government to provide affordable and accessible health care." 
 
 The talks on the Hill over health care are being driven by five key Republicans: Ryan, Senate Finance Chairman Orrin Hatch, Senate Health Chairman Lamar Alexander, House Energy and Commerce Chairman Greg Walden and Ways and Means Chairman Kevin Brady. 
 
 And the Energy and Commerce Committee met in January with more than a dozen GOP governors from states that expanded Medicaid and those that did not, and discussions are continuing between the governors and the lawmakers, a committee aide said. 
 
 How the four GOP governors go along with the plan also could influence key senators from those states -- including Nevada Sen. Dean Heller, who is up for re-election in 2018 and whose governor is involved in the talks. And if Kasich cuts a deal, it could influence key Ohio Republicans in both chambers. ||||| Senate Republicans voted Tuesday to open debate on repealing Obamacare, dramatically reviving an effort that many GOP lawmakers left for dead just a few days ago. 
 
 The vote is a huge political win and turnaround for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Republicans who've promised for seven years to repeal Obamacare if voters gave them control of Congress and the White House. 
 
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 Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), recently diagnosed with brain cancer, entered the chamber to a standing ovation before casting his vote. Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) got on board only after engaging in a long conversation on the Senate floor with McConnell. GOP Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska broke ranks to oppose the measure, forcing Vice President Mike Pence to break a 50-50 tie. 
 
 All Democrats opposed the measure. Underscoring the significance of the vote, many senators sat at their desks for the vote. 
 
 The vote is no guarantee that the fractured Republican caucuses can coalesce around a single health care plan. 
 
 “There’s a lot of work ahead of us and I don’t think anybody’s taking anything for granted,” said Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.). "If we can get something by the end of this week through the Senate it would at least position us so that we can get to conference with the House.” 
 
 Now that debate has officially started, Republicans in the Senate lack 50 votes on a policy. Moderates oppose repealing Obamacare without a replacement, and conservatives don’t like the idea of significantly replacing it. 
 
 Both policies are expected to get a vote, but both are expected to fail. In addition, the Senate will vote on key amendment — a proposal by Sen. Ted Cruz to allow insurers to sell plans not covered by Obamacare rules and a plan from Sen. Rob Portman to move people covered by Medicaid expansion to private insurance. 
 
 Those proposals had been combined with the broader GOP plan to replace Obamacare, a bill that has been under development in the Senate for two months but was set aside last week when it became clear there wouldn’t be 50 GOP votes. Nine conservative and moderate Republicans joined all Democrats on a 43-57 vote that effectively killed the measure Tuesday evening. 
 
 Republicans who voted to reject their party's repeal-and-replace plan were Collins, Murkowski, and Sens. Rand Paul of Kentucky, Bob Corker of Tennessee, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Dean Heller of Nevada, Jerry Moran of Kansas, Tom Cotton of Arkansas and Mike Lee of Utah. 
 
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 Shortly before 6 p.m., Republican leaders released the text of the new amendment. 
 
 "Just to show you how troubling this process is, at 10 of 6 we received a [178-page] amendment," Collins said. "That is major policy and we're going to have potentially an hour and a half to read through that many pages?" 
 
 Dozens of other amendments are planned, including the lengthy "vote-a-rama" process of unlimited amendment expected on Thursday evening. 
 
 “We’re going to be doing a lot of voting so I hope you eat your Cheerios,” said Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn (R-Texas). 
 
 The leading idea now is to repeal only a small portion of the health law in order to get a bill to a conference with the House. 
 
 Republicans would aim to enact a bill repealing three parts of Obamacare: the individual and employer mandates and the medical device tax, according to Republican sources. It could be expanded or altered depending on where the bulk of the conference is. 
 
 "Whatever gets to 50," said Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.). 
 
 The goal would be to get an Obamacare repeal bill through the Senate and to a conference with the House. Or perhaps to pass a bill that the House would accept given opposition among some House members to a bicameral conference committee. Still, that scaled-back approach is already hitting some resistance among some GOP senators. 
 
 But it’s already running into trouble. 
 
 “I'm not going to vote for something that's a scaled down version, that's a political punt," Graham said earlier Tuesday. The South Carolina Republican will vote for the motion to proceed but added that a final product to fix the health care system should go through "regular order." 
 
 Collins said the proposal wasn’t described at the weekly Senate GOP policy lunch. 
 
 “And so apparently that is an amendment that the leader would offer at the end,” she said. “I have no idea what’s going into that.” 
 
 And Republicans are considering making further changes to the repeal-and-replace plan. Administration officials and senators are discussing adding as much as $100 billion more to earlier drafts to help low-income people with premiums, Republicans said. 
 
 Before Tuesday's vote, McConnell urged senators to take the first step to “provide relief on this failed left-wing experiment.” 
 
 “I’d like to reiterate what the president said yesterday. ‘Any senator who votes against starting debate,’ he said, ‘is telling America that you are fine with the Obamacare nightmare…’ That’s a position that even Democrats have found hard to defend,” McConnell said. 
 
 The fate of the vote was uncertain as recently as Tuesday morning. Paul, Heller and moderate Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) waited until the final hours before the vote to announce they would support opening debate on the bill. 
 
 Paul’s vote was conditioned on the party agreeing to move quickly to a vote on repealing without a replacement. The other amendment would be a leadership-designed repeal and replace bill, he said. 
 
 Heller said his support for whatever emerges later is not assured. 
 
 “If the final product isn’t improved for the state of Nevada, then I will not vote for it; if it is improved, I will support it,” Heller said. 
 
 Capito said she is “committed to reforming our health care system" while also addressing her concerns, which have centered on Medicaid. 
 
 Johnson declined to reveal how he would vote up to 20 minutes before the vote started. “No comment,” he repeatedly told reporters. 
 
 McConnell and his leadership team threw everything they had at wavering senators: the threat of political disaster if they fail, an open amendment process to allow their ideas to be debated — and the argument that a flawed Senate bill can be fixed later in conference negotiations with the House. Even McCain’s return was used as a sign of positive momentum. 
 
 "If we can get the bill through the Senate we can start negotiations with the House,” Cornyn said.
– John Boehner could only laugh when he heard Republicans talking about quickly repealing and replacing the Affordable Care Act. “Republicans never ever agree on health care," Politico quotes the former house speaker as saying Thursday. Despite President Trump saying to expect a plan to repeal and replace ObamaCare by mid-March, Boehner says an ACA repeal is only "happy talk" and definitely "not going to happen." He says Republicans will eventually settle on only slight changes to ObamaCare and that "most of the framework" will remain in place. Republican lawmakers are currently being beset at town halls with constituents worried about losing their health insurance. CNBC reports a new poll found an even 45% split between voters who approve of ObamaCare and those who oppose it. That's a 4-point increase for the approve side and a 7-point decrease for the oppose side just since early January. The poll found only 24% of voters want the ACA completely repealed; 26% want to see it expanded. Republicans in Congress are now turning to a handful of Republican governors—John Kasich and Scott Walker, among others—to help them figure this mess out, sources tell CNN. Lawmakers apparently want the governors to figure out what to do about the millions of people who received coverage with the expansion of Medicaid under ObamaCare.