Schumer calls on McConnell to send bipartisan health care bill to floor this week

Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) called on Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) Sunday to bring a bipartisan short-term ObamaCare stabilization deal to the Senate floor this week, despite uncertain support from President Trump.

“This is a good compromise. It took months to work out. It has a majority. It has 60 senators supporting it, we have all 48 Democrats, 12 Republicans. I would urge Senator McConnell to put it on the floor immediately, this week,” Schumer told NBC’s Chuck Todd on “Meet the Press” on Sunday. 

{mosads}”It will pass. It will pass by a large number of votes. That’ll put pressure on the House because let’s not forget what this bill does is prevent premiums from going up,” he continued. 

“If Republicans think that if premiums go up they’re going to avoid the blame, if Senator McConnell thinks that, he’s wrong,” he said. 

Schumer’s comments come after Trump said on Thursday he would be open to the bipartisan solution put forth by Sens. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) and Patty Murray (D-Wash.). But he had criticized the plan prior to those comments.

“We will probably like a very short-term solution until we hit the block grants,” Trump said. “If they can do something like that, I’m open to it.”

McConnell told CNN’s Dana Bash on “State of the Union” on Sunday that he would be willing to bring a health-care bill to the Senate floor if he had confidence Trump would sign it. 

“I’m not certain yet what the president is looking for here, but I’ll be happy to bring a bill to the floor if I know President Trump will sign it,” McConnell said. 

“What I’m waiting is to hear from President Trump what kind of health-care bill he might sign. If there’s a need for some kind of interim step here to stabilize the market, we need a bill the president will actually sign,” he continued.