Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer says he’s ready to work with Republicans on fixes to Obamacare after the GOP’s failure to make any progress on its healthcare bill.
Schumer, D-N.Y., in an interview with the Washington Post on Tuesday, said a bipartisan compromise on healthcare can be reached “if our Republican colleagues here in the Senate do what their instincts and heart tell them to do as opposed to what the president tells them to do.”
But he also expressed some doubt, noting that he hasn’t spoken with President Trump in months and Vice President Mike Pence in weeks.
“He’s tweeted at me much more than he’s talked to me lately,” Schumer said of Trump.
Schumer criticized Trump for saying he’s “not going to own” potential failures associated with Obamacare.
Trump “is running away from a difficult problem instead of trying to solve a difficult problem, which is what the American people hired him to do,” Schumer said. “It’s also not going to work. And that’s because he’s the president — he has a Republican House and Senate. If, God forbid, they sabotage health care, it’ll be on their watch and their plate. It’s small, it’s lack of leadership, but it’s also politically counterproductive.”
Schumer’s comments come a day after Senate Republicans were forced to abandon their effort to repeal and replace parts of Obamacare due to a lack of GOP support.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., announced Monday night he intended for the Senate to vote on a measure to repeal Obamacare and delay replacing it for two years. But enough Republicans came out against that plan on Tuesday to prohibit it from moving forward.
Despite that expected failure, McConnell said the chamber will vote next week on the bill to repeal Obamacare.
Trump said on Tuesday that Republicans should let Obamacare fail before coming to a solution.
Schumer, in the Post interview, laid out three ideas for reform, each of which has already been proposed by Senate Democrats.
He said he believes there is bipartisan support for the Trump administration to continue paying cost-sharing reduction payments for reducing copays and deductibles for low-income people.
Second, he promoted a proposal from Democratic Sens. Tim Kaine of Virginia and Tom Carper of Delaware that would create a permanent reinsurance program for the individual health insurance market.
And Schumer encouraged senators to consider a bill by Sen. Claire McCaskill D-Mo., that would allow people living in rural counties that lack health insurers to buy insurance from the health insurance exchange in D.C.
