New outreach to Democrats
Trump again says he’s open to a deal on healthcare, but Schumer is skeptical.
WASHINGTON — With Republicans having failed to repeal the Affordable Care Act, at least for now, President Trump on Saturday confirmed he’d once again opened the door to a deal with Democrats. They remain wary, at best.
“I called Chuck Schumer yesterday to see if the Dems want to do a great HealthCare Bill,” Trump tweeted on Saturday morning, speaking of the Senate Democratic leader and fellow New Yorker. “ObamaCare is badly broken, big premiums. Who knows!”
The president’s message, just before he headed to his Virginia golf club, reflected frustration with his party’s failures to keep its 7-year-old pledge to repeal and replace Obamacare. Trump has flirted with a healthcare deal with Democrats before, only to return to Republicans’ position that the law has to be scrapped.
That’s a nonstarter with Democrats, who say the law needs improvements but is working, even as the administration is taking actions they say amount to “sabotage.”
Schumer underscored that point in his response, making it clear that he and Trump weren’t about to embrace on a healthcare plan.
“The president wanted to make another run at repeal and replace and I told the president that’s off the table,” Schumer wrote Saturday, via Twitter. “If he wants to work together to improve the existing health care system, we Democrats are open to his suggestions.”
Schumer said “a good place to start” was the bipartisan effort led by two senators, Republican Lamar Alexander from Tennessee and Democrat Patty Murray of Washington, who are the chairman and senior Democrat, respectively, of the Senate Health Committee. Schumer said a deal “would stabilize the system and lower costs.”
The Alexander-Murray talks were shelved last month as Senate GOP leaders tried again to end the Affordable Care Act. But they couldn’t attract a majority behind the latest bill, and it was never brought to a vote. GOP leaders say they will keep trying, though many Republicans say the effort is doomed and they want to focus on tax cuts.