Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said Tuesday Republicans will get “clobbered” in the 2018 midterm elections if they are a referendum on healthcare, as Senate Republicans push forward with the Graham-Cassidy bill as they continue to work towards earning the requisite 50 + 1 votes for passage.
“We’re doing this because we care about people,” Schumer said of their ramped up opposition to the bill during the Senate Democrats’ weekly press conference. “If the 2018 election is a referendum on Trumpcare, they’re going to get clobbered, and they know it.”
The New York Democrat said GOP senators should be walking around with “blindfolds” on over the Graham-Cassidy healthcare bill, which would transfer Obamacare funding to states through block grants. It would also eliminate the Affordable Care Act’s individual and employer mandates.
“Our Republican colleagues should be walking around with blindfolds because they don’t want to see what’s in the bill they are being forced to vote for,” Schumer said, adding once more that they are “ashamed” of the legislation put forward.
Republicans will need to vote on the bill by Sept. 30 in order to use the reconciliation tool that allows them to pass the bill with only 51 votes rather than the usual 60 votes.
