After Republicans suffered a stunning loss last week in their effort to repeal and replace Obamacare, Democrats say they are willing to work with Republicans on health care and tax reform, but only if President Donald Trump and leaders in Congress adapt their agenda and invite Democrats to work with them in the process.
“If we can get Republicans to work with us to improve the Affordable Care Act in the sense that we cover more people and keep costs down I think that will work, but that is what it has to be,” Rep. Frank Pallone, the ranking member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, told CNN Monday.
Republican efforts to repeal Obamacare were always intended to be a partisan exercise. No Democrat was going to vote to gut former President Barack Obama’s signature achievement, but after Republican infighting sunk the party’s seven-year campaign promise to repeal the Affordable Care Act Friday, Democrats feel emboldened to stay true to their own values and force Republican leaders to come to them if Republican leaders want to pass big-ticket items and check off some of Trump’s legislative goals.
“You have to realize this health care bill was done all in secret. We couldn’t even get a copy,” said Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a California Democrat. “There were no hearings, nobody outside of the group that worked on it was really consulted and that’s a problem.”
Moving forward, Democrats say they are open to working with Republicans, but only if the GOP is serious about hearing their ideas.
Asked if Republicans had indefinitely poisoned the well for tax reform or infrastructure — both agenda items Trump has said he’d like to tackle — Feinstein said “not necessarily if it’s done right.”
On Monday afternoon, Ohio Gov. John Kasich and moderate Republican Rep. Charlie Dent — who’d pledged to vote against GOP leadership’s health care bill last week– held a press conference urging Republicans to work with Democrats in order to squeeze out the extreme factions on both sides of the political divide.
Kasich criticized the GOP health care effort for not reaching out to Democrats, and noted that he predicted earlier that if they didn’t get some support from the other party, the bill would fail.
“I’ve always believed that when you legislate you legislate from the middle and you crowd out the extremes on both sides, no matter what it is,” he said.
Democrats learned a valuable lesson last week as they watched Republicans sink their own health care bill. The GOP had used a process known as reconciliation to force the health care bill through Congress — a process that technically wouldn’t have required any Democratic cooperation to pass with a simple majority in the Senate — but Republican schisms were so pervasive that the bill died anyway. Democrats are keenly aware Republicans may repeat that process over and over again and aren’t likely to help the GOP with any heavy lifting without getting serious compromises in exchange.
“They are discombobulated and we don’t want to interfere with any of that,” said Sen. Brian Schatz, a Democrat from Hawaii. “I think it’s also fair to say we’re more united than ever.”
Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio said that Democrats always wanted to see the health care law improved, but that Republicans revealed themselves Friday.
“I think they’re pretty shell-shocked at their inability to get anything done. They showed their demagoguery in this,” Brown said. “I mean think about that for seven years, they (were) repeal, repeal, repeal. They had no idea what a replacement was. Paul Ryan, who is considered such a great thinker, had no idea what the replacement should be,” he said.
Republicans’ next major lift is expected to be tax reform, something that Senate Finance Committee Chairman Sen. Orrin Hatch already warns Democrats and Republicans haven’t seen eye-to-eye on in the past.”Democrats, they’ve never been real enthusiastic about corporate tax reductions,” Hatch said. “No matter what we do it looks like it’s gonna be an ordeal because they’re against everything so far.”
But Senate Finance Committee ranking member Sen. Ron Wyden, a Democrat from Oregon, said he’s open to sitting down with Republicans if they welcome Democrats into the negotiations early. If not, Republicans will once again be forced to get their rank-and-file in line and try to pass a massive piece of legislation while dealing with its own internal divisions.
“Clearly, they have a clear decision to make. Do they want to reach out and support policies that would be beneficial to everybody, which would be that you would have to have the bipartisanship that was so dramatically lacking in the health care debate?” Wyden said. “This administration never had one substantive conversation with me about health care reform.”
Wyden said he hasn’t had a serious discussion with the administration yet on tax reform either.
Democrats maintain that Republicans need to adapt their agenda if they want Democratic support moving forward.
During an interview on ABC’s “This Week” Sunday, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said he’s not confident Trump will do that.
“If he aims a proposal aimed at the middle class and the poor people, doesn’t give breaks to the rich — they’re doing great, God bless them, I’m glad they’re doing great; they don’t need another tax break — we could work with them,” Schumer said. “But I don’t think they’re headed in that direction, and they’re going repeat the same mistake they made on Trumpcare with tax reform.”
Monday afternoon, Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn, a Texas Republican, told reporters that the “lesson of last week” was that Republicans aren’t able to overhaul health care by themselves.
“I think that’s the lesson of last week,” he said. “That needs to be done on a bipartisan basis so we’re happy to work on it with Democrats if we can find any who are willing to do so rather than those who just want to stand back and enjoy the show.”
This story has been updated with additional lawmakers and breaking news.
