Senate Democrats said Monday they intend to force a floor vote this week to clamp down on the Trump administration’s efforts to give states an avenue to bypass certain requirements created by Obamacare.
Democrats included waivers, termed “1332s,” into the Affordable Care Act so as to allow states the opportunity to experiment with their own insurance models in addition to Obamacare. President Trump’s administration, however, adopted the view that the waivers give states the option to create plans circumventing Obamacare.
Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer announced Monday that Democrats would demand a vote on a resolution overturning the Trump administration’s actions.
“This week, the Senate will hold one of the most significant votes of the year: we will finally see where Republicans stand on the Trump administration’s efforts to sabotage the health care of millions of Americans with preexisting conditions,” Mr. Schumer said in a statement. “It is preposterous that the Trump administration claims to care about preserving preexisting condition protections for millions of Americans while simultaneously peddling shoddy, substandard junk plans that undermine and weaken those very protections.”
The New York Democrat challenged his Republican colleagues to, “[S]tand up to the sabotage or stop swindling the American people with your empty promises of support for protections for Americans with preexisting conditions.”
The Senate Democrats’ effort to undo the Trump administration’s approach to health care is part of a larger strategy to systematically undermine the Trump administration’s agenda from the Senate.
Last week, Democrats deployed a similar procedural move to undo a component of the tax reform legislation signed into law by Mr. Trump in 2017. The Democrats’ resolution to change the cap on deductions for state and local taxes failed last week along mostly partisan lines.
Democrats said they intend to force a vote on the Obamacare waivers as soon as Wednesday.
