[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 163 (2017), Part 11]
[Senate]
[Page 16403]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                               HEALTHCARE

  Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, on healthcare, President Trump should 
stop playing games with America's healthcare and publicly declare his 
support for the Alexander-Murray compromise.
  President Trump is meeting with the Senate Republicans at their 
caucus lunch today, with Senator Alexander and all other 11 Republican 
cosponsors of the bill. Why not provide some clarity? Why not say, as 
he has said in the past, that he supports Senator Alexander's work? I 
believe many more Republican Senators want to sign their name onto this 
bill, but they are waiting to hear definitively from the President 
before they announce their support. After all, nearly every Republican 
here voted to extend the cost-sharing program already. It was part of 
their first healthcare bill. Every Democrat supports cost-sharing.
  So the President has talked to me about wanting to be bipartisan on 
healthcare, and the best way to do it is to support Alexander-Murray. 
It is time that the President catches up to the rest of us and supports 
the bill. Right now he is the barrier.
  Leader McConnell has said that if the President will sign it, he will 
put it on the floor of the Senate. It will get an overwhelming vote. It 
will then have to be put on the House floor. So Speaker Ryan will have 
no choice, or the rise in premiums will be on his back and the backs of 
his Members whom he seeks to protect.

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