Schumer Remarks Calling for Bipartisan Action on Healthcare

Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senator Charles E. Schumer today delivered remarks urging bipartisan efforts to improve the nation’s healthcare system. Below are his remarks:

Last night was an amazing moment. And the credit goes to a lot of people, but at the top of the list are the three who showed amazing courage to resist the pressure and do what’s good for the country.

John McCain is at the top of the list. He and I have been friends for a very long time, ever since the Gang of Eight, which we put together. And I have not seen a senator who speaks truth to power as strongly, as well, and as frequently as John McCain.

The very same courage he showed as a naval aviator in Vietnam he showed last night, and has shown time and time again. He’s just a wonderful man. I treasure his friendship and just the fact of knowing him.

I’ve known a few great men in the Senate. I put Ted Kennedy in that category, and Danny Inouye, and I’d put McCain in that category, too.

And, certainly not to be forgotten, of equal praise are Susan Collins, and Lisa Murkowski. They were amazing. And women are—in  so many instances—stronger than men. They brag less about it, but they are. And last night sort of proved that. As somebody who is in a family of strong women, I very much appreciate their strength, their courage, and their dedication to principle despite the entreaties.

So, where do we go from here? Well, John McCain said it all on Tuesday night. I hope this is a turning point. His speech, when he returned to the Senate, and his vote last night and in his actions over the last few days.

On healthcare, I hope we can work together to make the system better in a bipartisan way. And, I’m optimistic that that can happen. I think at the very beginning, we should stabilize the system. We should make permanent the cost sharing which will keep people’s premiums down, and keeps the counties that are covered, up.

We should look at reinsurance. Tom Carper and Tim Kaine have a bill. Susan Collins and Bill Nelson have a bill, and that will help stabilize the insurance markets. And we should look at Claire McCaskill’s proposal for bare counties that offer real opportunities for health insurance for counties – the relatively small number of counties - almost all rural that are not covered. That’s what we should do initially. But then we should sit down and trade ideas.

Lamar Alexander and Patty Murray are already talking about doing that and I’m hopeful that we can begin a series of hearings.

Nobody has said Obamacare is perfect. Nobody has said our healthcare system doesn’t need fixing. The problem was when they tried to just pull the rug out from under the existing healthcare system. So, change it, improve it, but don’t just take a knife and try to destroy it and put nothing in its place.

We can work together. And I said that on the floor last night and a whole number of Republicans who are usually more quiet, more conservative came over to me and thanked me and said they wanted to do it.

So, on healthcare but also as a Senate as a whole, I hope what John McCain did will be regarded in history as a turning point where the Senate turned back from its partisanship and started working together.

We long for it. We yearn to work together. And there are various forces – they call them centripetal forces, that get in the way, but I think sometimes you need a little spark that inspires the forces of coming together that out weight the forces of pulling apart, and John McCain may have done that. And, I intend to follow through. I’m not finished.

Two other things I would say. President Trump did a tweet last night and a tweet this morning - not presidential.

The tweet last night said ‘we’re going to let the system collapse. We’re going to hurt innocent people because we’re angry we lost politically.’ That is small. That is not what a President does. And I hope our Senate colleagues, our House colleagues on his side of the aisle will turn a deaf ear on that.

The things I mentioned will help make the system stronger, they’re not ideological, and we can do those first. And then we can look at each other’s ideas. So, this idea of sabotage is a very bad thing and Donald Trump doesn’t even get it politically, because if he sabotages the system it’s going to hurt him as well as hurting millions of Americans.

And second, this morning, Donald Trump pulled away from the bipartisanship that John McCain and so many Senators felt last night by saying we should change the rules and go to 51.

He had 51. He only needed 51 in the healthcare bill and couldn’t do it. So, let him turn around too. Let him understand that the only way that we get major things done in America - in the Congress and particularly in the Senate - is bipartisan. And I hope he changes. But his analysis is based on fluff because he had the 51 votes already with reconciliation and he couldn’t get it done, and then he says lets go down to 51. I just – I just don’t get it.

Finally, just a deeper analysis. Well, people blame Mitch McConnell, I don’t think that’s fair. I think there were deep, deep fault lines in what our Republican colleagues tried to do. Because Donald Trump and the Republican Party campaigned on one thing - lower premiums, more coverage, don’t cut Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. And the bill they put together did just the opposite.

They didn’t campaign on what they proposed - tax cuts to the rich, slashing Medicaid -  but what happened was the hard-right, Koch Brother wing of the Republican Party has too much influence, and for years they’ve been on the outside attacking. They’re pretty good at attacking. Now they’re on the inside and they can’t get anything done because they’re so far away from the American people.

And I say this because if they do the same thing - campaign one way, and then propose legislation another way in favor of the wealthy, powerful few, they’ll fail on tax reform, they’ll fail on infrastructure.

Instead, on those issues, work with us in a bipartisan way, and we can do good things on both those issues.

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