you know, republicans are facing fierce primaries across the country. i really hope that when voters look at these campaigns, they will not support those folks who are simply playing political games as opposed to doing the right thing for their states and for the country, as dsc chair to get more support for the bill would you pledge not to run attack ads or send out attacks on supporting this version of health care, sort of taking health care off the table for any republican incumbent who comes out in support of the fix? we re not attacking any republican who joins this bipartisan effort? not attack them on health care at wall? no. on this bill. that s what i mean. would you be willing to take health care off the table on some of these if they agreed to support of compromise like this. i m not sure what you re referring to, cluck. a lot of these republican senators recently cast votes, multiple votes, that would blow up the affordable care act that
welcome back. republicans are quarrelling among themselves about health ca care. while there are a dozen democratic co-sponsors of the bill they aren t on the same page when it comes to health care either. joining me, senator chris van hollen, chair of the democratic campaign committee and, yes, the senator in charge of the 2018 mid-term campaign on the senate side. senator van holland, good to see you, sir. chuck, great to see you. i believe you re not a co-sponsor on the alexander/murray. double checking s you re not. any reason you re not and does that signal any lack of support for the bill? it does not signal until lack of support for the bill. i m fully supportive of the
when they passed obamacare not providing legal cost sharing for cost sharing deseductions. bottom line, insurance companies get paid either way. s fix is in. cost sharing reductions or increase premiums and the american taxpayer will be out cbo and have another $194 billion. so i think it s a legitimate point of view on the part of republicans to really resist trying to fund these unsustainable markets. that s a legitimate point of view, but the reality is, if we don t fund these cost sharing deductions, people that are working hard, those individuals that don t get subsidies. that bill clinton talked about, already priced out of obamacare markets so you re for the bill? no. what i m for is an exchange for cost sharing deductions getting rereforms. i appreciate what lamar and patti have done. face it, it s an easy lift to convince all democrats to fund this faulty architecture. it s more difficult in the house. i m taking a different position,
gets to a vote. it would be good if the president of the united states would stop jumping around all over the place and making misleading comments, but for now, i do think we re headed in the right direction on this really important to stablize the market. make sure that people s co-pays don t spike. that their deductibles and other out of pocket expenses don t shoot through the roof and ultimately if we don t do this, premiumless go up on everybody. not a single republican senator that s going to actively going to run or could still run in 2018 signed on as a co-sponsor of this bill? what does that tell you? well, it s too early to tell. what we do know is that a lot of those senators voted to try to totally blow up the affordable care act. were willing to create chaos within the health care system and now is their opportunity to work on a bipartisan basis to actually get things done, but as
would cut trillions of dollars, a trillion dollars from medicaid, and all sorts of other things. i think voters should judge members on the merits on each of their votes. on this bipartisan vote. we re not going to attack anybody for supporting this bipartisan effort to stabilize the health care system. how would you describe this bill? is this a bill that saves obamacare? this is a bill that provides a short-term stability in the insurance market giving people an opportunity to look for longer-term solutions. we can have the broader debate, but let s not create a lot of damage to a lot of consumers right now. for example, we re having a broader debate right now on the budget. the republican budget includes almost $500 billion in cuts to medicare. they also include $1 trillion in cuts to medicaid while they re providing these massive tax breaks for the wealthiest americans. so these other broader debates