Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer unloaded on President Trump Wednesday for saying Republicans should let Obamacare die, arguing no moral or religious precept would condone that position.
“It’s hard to believe that he could say something like that,” the New York Democrat said. “President Trump’s promise to let our health care system collapse is so, so wrong on three counts. It’s a failure morally, it’s a failure politically, and it’s a remarkable failure of presidential leadership.”
Mr. Trump has threatened to let the Affordable Care Act’s ailing markets wither and fade, after Republicans failed to rally around a replacement or simpler bill to gut it now and replace it within two years.
He said Democrats will have to own the failure of their signature program, which extended coverage to millions but failed to attract young and healthy enrollees, resulting in rising premiums and dwindling choices on its web-based exchanges.
“The Dems scream death as OCare dies!” he tweeted.
Mr. Trump plans to lunch with Senate Republicans Wednesday in a last-ditch bid to get them on board with a repeal plan.
Sens. Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia, Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska have said they will not support a motion to proceed next week onto a Plan B bill that scrap parts of Obamacare now and the rest within two years, buying time for Congress to develop a replacement. They say it would inject too much uncertainty into insurance markets already reeling under Obamacare.
With every Democrat opposed, the measure doesn’t have sufficient support to proceed.
Sen. Rand Paul, Kentucky Republican, said maybe there is a way to tweak the bill — it passed in 2015 but ran into President Obama’s veto pen — so that enough Republicans are satisfied.
“I don’t think we just immediately give up. I think what we do is we try to take the clean repeal and see if it can be modified to the liking of a couple of those members,” Mr. Paul said.
Yet moderates say it is time to bridge the partisan divide by holding open hearings on the best way forward.
Insurers, meanwhile, are looking for clarity from Washington.
Mr. Trump has threatened to withhold Obamacare reimbursements that bolster insurers who lose money on low-income customers’ costs, yet pulling the trigger would prompt insurers to raise their premiums to make up the shortfall.
Mr. Schumer says the best way to keep the markets humming is to work on bipartisan fixes.
He prodded the Senate to do three things immediately — guarantee the insurer reimbursements, or “cost-sharing reductions;” establish a “reinsurance” program that backstops insurers who take on high-cost customers; and let counties that don’t have an insurer on their exchange next year shop on the D.C. small-business portal that members of Congress use.
“These proposals are specific, non ideological and could pass quickly and make life better for millions of Americans,” he said.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said he plans to forge ahead with a repeal bid next week, even though it might not get very far.
“After consulting with both the White House and our members, we have decided to hold the vote to open debate on Obamacare repeal early next week,” he said. “The Obamacare repeal legislation will ensure a stable, two-year transition period, which will allow us to wipe the slate clean and start over with real patient-centered health care reform.”
• Tom Howell Jr. can be reached at thowell@washingtontimes.com.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.