Rep. Chris Van Hollen accused President Trump of “trying to stir the pot” on Monday in the continuing health care debate.
“The president is just trying to stir the pot, as usual, on these issues. He doesn’t have the facts on his side, as usual. I’m hopeful that you’re going to have Republicans in the Senate and the House now saying that they want to work with Democrats,” Mr. Van Hollen, Maryland Democrat, said on CNN.
Mr. Van Hollen was reacting to Mr. Trump’s tweets regarding the cost sharing reduction payments in Obamacare. Mr. Trump has said he may stop making the payments to insurance companies after this month. The CSR payments help lower the cost of Obamacare for lower-income recipients.
“Time to ignore the president’s tweets. The president has also threatened Senate Republicans and said they should go to a different voting system. Why don’t we just focus on working together to improve the exchanges in the short term and then work on bigger issues like reducing the cost of prescription drugs?” he said.
Mr. Van Hollen said a public option would take care of lowering costs since it would increase competition in the marketplace.
“I think within the exchanges we should offer a public option in the exchanges. That would create more competition. It would drive down prices,” he said.
• Sally Persons can be reached at spersons@washingtontimes.com.
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