GOP shows signs of reaching out on health care
From wire services
WASHINGTON — Republicans showed signs Tuesday of reaching out to Democrats for a joint if modest effort to buttress health insurance markets, four days after the GOP effort to unilaterally uproot and reshape the Obama health care law crumpled in the Senate.
The Republican chairman of the Senate health committee, Tennessee’s Lamar Alexander, said he’d seek bipartisan legislation extending for one year federal payments to insurers that help millions of low- and moderate-income Americans afford coverage.
President Donald Trump has threatened to halt those subsidies in hopes of forcing Democrats to make concessions, which the Senate’s top Democrat, Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., on Tuesday called “not what an adult does.”
The No. 2 Senate Republican also seemed to imply the two parties should seek common health care ground. Texas Sen. John Cornyn said on the Senate floor, “We are forced to work together to try to solve these problems, and I think frankly bipartisan solutions tend to be more durable.”
In addition, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell rebuffed Mr. Trump’s demands that the Senate change its rules so it can pass a health overhaul with a simple majority vote. Mr. McConnell, R-Ky., said the Senate lacks the votes to end filibusters of legislation like Mr. Trump wants, and noted that getting the 60 votes needed to end filibusters wasn’t why Republicans lost.
“It’s pretty obvious that our problem with health care was not the Democrats. We didn’t have 50 Republicans,” Mr. McConnell told reporters.
The prospects for passing bipartisan health care legislation remain uncertain, with divisions between conservatives and moderate Republicans persisting on several issues.
Pushback on police issue
Days after police widely criticized Mr. Trump for telling officers to be “rough” with people taken into custody, leaders of a prominent black policing group met with Attorney General Jeff Sessions on Tuesday to air their concerns that the remarks could deepen divisions between police and racial minorities.
“We are not thugs. We are professionals. We fully expect law enforcement around the country to behave as professionals,” the group’s president, Perry Tarrant, said after meeting with Mr. Sessions.
Transgender support
Adm. Paul Zukunft, the head of the Coast Guard, said Tuesday he would not “break faith” with transgender troops under his command, despite Mr. Trump’s recent announcement that he was going to ban the small pool of service members from serving.