Top Democrats in the House and Senate argued Wednesday that President-elect Trump’s plan to repeal Obamacare would make millions of people sick, and mocked the GOP’s plan to eliminate the law.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said the GOP plan is to “make America sick again,” riffing off of Trump’s campaign pledge to make America great again. He and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said the GOP is waging a full scale assault on the U.S. healthcare system, including on Medicare and Medicaid.
“Republicans are plotting, and soon will be executing, a full scale assault on the three pillars that support the American healthcare system,” Schumer said, pointing to the the Affordable Care Act (ACA), Medicare and Medicaid. “The Republican plan to cut healthcare wouldn’t make America great again, it would make American sick again, and lead to chaos instead of affordable care.”
“They have no idea what to put in place of the Affordable Care Act,” Schumer said. He noted that Trump has said he wants to keep the “good parts” of the ACA, including coverage for those with preexisting conditions and allowing young people to stay on the healthcare plan of their parents until they are 26. However, he warned that that would not be possible if they repealed the law.
“They are stuck between a rock and a hard place,” Schumer said.
Schumer also said Obama’s speech before the two Democratic caucuses was “very inspiring” and left the members with “great optimism.” Obama met with Democrats to rally them, but failed to provide a strategy for defending the law. He also reportedly told the caucuses to label Trump’s replacement “Trumpcare.”
The New York Democrat repeatedly charged that if Republicans are able to repeal Obamacare after Trump takes office, the onus is on them to replace it, adding that Democrats plan to work with them once they offer up an alternative.
“We’re going to say, ‘let’s see the Republican plan’ because the Republicans, if we put forward a plan first, they’d reject it. The kind of thing we want to do are quite different,” Schumer said. “We want to cover these 20 million [people]. We did already.”
“The problem is… they’re an ideological caucus, and they want to repeal it and hang it on us. Not going to happen,” Schumer said with added emphasis. “It’s their responsibility, plain and simple.”
“It will be on their backs, and I believe a year from now they will regret that they came so fast out of the box,” Schumer predicted.
Schumer argued that the many of the perceived problems with Obamacare were due to messaging.
“The biggest problem was that once ACA passed, people attributed every problem they had with the healthcare system, whether they were part of ACA or not, to ACA, and our Republican colleagues and their message machine did it,” Schumer said. “Now they’re going to own it, and all of the health care problems in the health care system… are going to be on their back … Their running to do this first is a huge mistake for them and the country.
The Democratic meeting with Obama took place while House Republicans met with Vice President-elect Pence to discuss their plan to repeal Obamacare and their plan moving forward. Pence told reporters after the meeting that Trump is planning to sign executive actions and push for legislation to dismantle the current healthcare system.
Schumer and Pelosi were flanked by 20 of their fellow members, including Sens. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt. and Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass.
