The top Democrat in the Senate said that Republicans’ efforts to try to repeal Obamacare would destroy a nascent bipartisan effort to stabilize Obamacare’s markets.
“Democrats and Republicans have been working in good faith to come up with bipartisan agreement on healthcare,” said Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York on the Senate floor Tuesday.
He said the Republican majority will “toss all of that away” if they pursue an Obamacare overhaul bill next week. Republicans are hoping the bill is their last attempt to repeal the law through reconciliation, a tool that expires at the end of the month and lets a bill get through the Senate with only 51 votes.
Republican Sens. Bill Cassidy, of Louisiana, and Lindsey Graham, of South Carolina, are spearheading the legislation that turns Obamacare funding into block grants to states.
The Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee has been holding a series of bipartisan hearings on how to stabilize Obamacare’s exchanges on the individual market, which is used by people that don’t have insurance through work.
But so far no deal has been announced on how to stabilize the markets. HELP chairman Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., wants to provide more flexibility for states to waive Obamacare regulations in exchange for funding insurer subsidies for one year.
Schumer said that any pursuit of the new bill sponsored by four Republican senators will quickly halt any attempts at bipartisanship.
“We’ve seen bipartisan sprouts bloom in the last month,” he said. “Graham-Cassidy would snuff them out. Nobody wants that.”
