{"id":122123,"date":"2017-10-08T03:21:29","date_gmt":"2017-10-08T07:21:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=122123"},"modified":"2019-03-26T00:55:38","modified_gmt":"2019-03-26T04:55:38","slug":"trump-reaches-out-to-democrats-in-bid-for-great-health-law","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2017\/10\/08\/trump-reaches-out-to-democrats-in-bid-for-great-health-law\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump reaches out to Democrats in bid for ‘great’ health law"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"The<\/a>
The answer back: Democrats are willing to hear his ideas, but scrapping the Obama health law is a nonstarter. (Photo:<\/a> Gage Skidmore\/Flickr<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

WASHINGTON\u2014 Trying to revive health care talks, President Donald\u00a0Trump\u00a0said Saturday that he had spoken to the Senate’s Democratic leader to gauge whether the minority party was interested in helping pass \u201cgreat\u201d health legislation.<\/p>\n

The answer back: Democrats are willing to hear his ideas, but scrapping the Obama health law is a nonstarter.<\/p>\n

Trump’s latest overture to Democrats followed GOP failures so far to fulfil the party’s yearslong promise to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act. In spite of controlling the White House and Congress since January, Republicans have not passed the legislation.<\/p>\n

The president tweeted that he called New York Sen. Chuck Schumer on Friday to discuss the 2010 law known as \u201cObamacare,\u201d which\u00a0Trump\u00a0said \u201cis badly broken, big premiums. Who knows!\u201d\u00a0Trump\u00a0said he wanted \u201cto see if the Dems want to do a great HealthCare Bill.\u201d<\/p>\n

In remarks Saturday evening on the South Lawn before a trip to North Carolina,\u00a0Trump\u00a0said he was willing to consider \u201ca temporary deal.\u201d What that might involve was not clear, but\u00a0Trump\u00a0referred to a popular GOP proposal that would have the federal government turn over money for health care directly to states in the form of block grants.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we could do a one-year deal or a two-year deal as a temporary measure, you’ll have block granting ultimately to the states, which is what the Republicans want. That really is a repeal and replace,\u201d he said. In an interview taped earlier this week and aired Saturday night on Trinity Broadcasting Network, the president assured host Mike Huckabee that \u201cwe’ll have health care before the election.\u201d<\/p>\n

Schumer said through a spokesman Saturday that\u00a0Trump\u00a0\u201dwanted to make another run at repeal and replace and I told the president that’s off the table.\u201d Schumer said if\u00a0Trump\u00a0\u201dwants to work together to improve the existing health care system, we Democrats are open to his suggestions.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump\u00a0has suggested before that he would be open to negotiating with Democrats on health care, but there have been no clear signs of a compromise between Republicans who have sought to scrap President Barack Obama’s law and Democrats who want to protect it.<\/p>\n

Schumer said a starting point could be negotiations led by Sens. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., and Patty Murray, D-Wash., who have been discussing a limited bipartisan deal to stabilize state-level markets for individual health insurance policies. People covered under the health law represent about half of those who purchase individual policies.<\/p>\n

Trump\u00a0irritated GOP leaders in Congress when he reached a deal with Schumer and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., on a spending bill and the debt ceiling. The president has referred to those two Democrats as \u201cChuck and Nancy.\u201d<\/p>\n

But the\u00a0Trump\u00a0administration announced Friday that it would allow more employers to opt out of no-cost birth control to women by claiming religious or moral objections. The move was one more attempt to roll back Obama’s health overhaul, prompting Democrats to question whether\u00a0Trump\u00a0is committed to avoiding sabotaging the law.<\/p>\n

Trump\u00a0floated the potential talks as he approved an emergency declaration for a large part of Louisiana and ordered federal assistance for the state as Hurricane Nate approached the central Gulf of Mexico.<\/p>\n

The president headlined a fundraiser on Saturday night in Greensboro, North Carolina, to benefit his\u00a0Trump\u00a0Victory joint fundraising committee with the Republican National Committee. The event was expected to raise $2 million, with donors paying up to $35,000 per couple to serve as co-hosts.<\/p>\n

Before leaving for North Carolina,\u00a0Trump\u00a0repeated his assertion that trying to negotiate with North Korea over its nuclear and missile programs is a waste of time.<\/p>\n

In a two-part tweet, he said: \u201cPresidents and their administrations have been talking to North Korea for 25 years, agreements made and massive amounts of money paid … hasn’t worked, agreements violated before the ink was dry, makings fools of U.S. negotiators. Sorry, but only one thing will work!\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump’s tweets Saturday and earlier in the week were seen directed either at undermining Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s efforts to maintain channels of communication or at somehow bolstering the diplomat’s hand in possible future talks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON\u2014 Trying to revive health care talks, President Donald\u00a0Trump\u00a0said Saturday that he had spoken to the Senate’s Democratic leader to …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":122124,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24157,37,17],"tags":[26599,14087,26598,26597],"class_list":["post-122123","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-american-news","category-health","category-news-w","tag-great-health-law","tag-president-donald-trump","tag-senates-democratic-leader","tag-trump-reaches-out-to-democrats-in-bid-for-great-health-law","mauthors-ken-thomas","mauthors-alan-fram","mauthors-the-associated-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122123","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=122123"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122123\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":206807,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122123\/revisions\/206807"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/122124"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=122123"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=122123"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=122123"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}