healthcare bill and goaded them to not abandon their seven-year quest to replace the Obamacare law.
In a Twitter
message on Saturday, Trump said "if a new HealthCare Bill is not approved
quickly, BAILOUTS for Insurance Companies and BAILOUTS for Members of Congress will
end very soon!"
The tweet
came a day after Senate Republicans failed to muster enough votes to repeal
parts of the Affordable Care Act, President Barack Obama's signature healthcare
bill commonly known as Obamacare.
The first
part of Trump's tweet appeared to be referring to the approximately $8 billion
in cost-sharing reduction subsidies the federal government pays to insurers to
lower the price of health coverage for low-income Americans.
The second
part appeared to be a threat to end the employer contribution for Congress
members and their staffs, who were moved from the normal federal employee
healthcare benefits program onto the Obamacare insurance exchanges as part of
the 2010 healthcare law.
Trump has
previously threatened to suspend the payments to insurers, which are determined
by the Department of Health and Human Services. In April, he threatened to end
the payments if Democrats refused to negotiate over the healthcare bill.
Responding
to Saturday's tweet, Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said that if the
president carried out that threat, "every expert agrees that (insurance)
premiums will go up and health care will be more expensive for millions of
Americans."
"The
president ought to stop playing politics with people's lives and health care,
start leading and finally begin acting presidential,” Schumer said in a
statement.
Trump later
urged Senate Republicans to try again on a healthcare vote. The Senate is in
session for another week before it is scheduled to begin an August recess.
"Unless
the Republican Senators are total quitters, Repeal & Replace is not dead!
Demand another vote before voting on any other bill!" Trump said in a
subsequent tweet.
Many
insurers have been waiting for an answer from Trump or lawmakers on whether
they will continue to fund the annual government subsidies. Without assurances,
many plan to raise rates an additional 20 percent by an Aug. 16 deadline for
premium prices.
With
Republican efforts to dismantle Obamacare in disarray, hundreds of U.S. counties
are at risk of losing access to private health coverage in 2018 as insurers
consider pulling out of those markets.
In response, Trump on Friday again suggested
his administration would let the Obamacare program "implode." He has
weakened enforcement of the law’s requirement for individuals to buy insurance,
threatened to cut off funding and sought to change plan benefits through
regulations.
Meanwhile,
some congressional Republicans were still trying to find a way forward on
healthcare.
Senator
Lindsey Graham said in a statement issued late on Friday that he and two other
Republican senators, Dean Heller and Bill Cassidy, had met with Trump after the
defeat to discuss Graham's proposal to take tax money raised by Obamacare and
send it back to the states in the form of healthcare block grants.
Graham said
the move would end Democrats' drive for a national single-payer healthcare
system by putting states in charge.
"President
Trump was optimistic about the Graham-Cassidy-Heller proposal," Graham
added. "I will continue to work with President Trump and his team to move
the idea forward."
However, a
majority of Americans are ready to move on from healthcare at this point.
According to a Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Saturday, 64 percent of 1,136
people surveyed on Friday and Saturday said they wanted to keep Obamacare,
either "entirely as is" or after fixing "problem areas.
When asked
what they think Congress should do next, most picked other priorities such as
tax reform, foreign relations and infrastructure. Only 29 percent said they
wanted Republicans in Congress to "continue working on a new healthcare
bill."
Asked what
they think Congress should do next, most respondents picked other priorities
such as tax reform, foreign relations and infrastructure. Only 29 percent said
they wanted Republicans in Congress to "continue working on a new
healthcare bill."
Additional
reporting by David Lawder in Washington; Editing by Jonathan Oatis and James
Dalgleish
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