GOP lawmaker: Time to work with Dems on healthcare

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GOP lawmaker: Time to work with Dems on healthcare

 By Max Greenwood  - 03/25/17 06:37 PM EDT  

Rep. Charlie Dent (R-Pa.) is calling on Republicans to work with Democrats on healthcare reform after GOP leaders on Friday dropped their plan to repeal and replace ObamaCare.

Dent, the co-chairman of the moderate Tuesday Group, expressed frustration Saturday with House GOP leadership's efforts to rush their bill through Congress, comparing it to the Democrats' passage of ObamaCare in 2010.

"If we're going to have a durable, sustainable healthcare reform in this country, it must be done on a bipartisan basis," Dent said during an interview with CNN's Michael Smerconish.

"The failure of the Democrats ... was they jammed this thing through on a partisan basis, and we've been fighting about it ever since."

"We as Republicans should not make that same mistake – trying to jam this thing through, muscle it through on a partisan basis," he continued. "The House could flip, the Senate could flip, then we'd be back at this, fighting ad nauseum. We need a bipartisan, durable, sustainable solution."

Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) on Friday pulled the plug on the GOP's American Health Care Act (AHCA) amid looming failure in a vote. The bill failed to win enough backing among Republicans, and no Democrats were expected to vote for it.

Dent was among a sizable group of House Republicans vowing to vote against the measure.

After the AHCA was pulled from consideration, Trump said he would wait for ObamaCare to fail, before striking a deal on a new healthcare reform plan with Democrats.

Dent argued that there's ground for bipartisan cooperation on healthcare reform, saying Democrats will have to be willing to work on repairing the individual insurance market, which he said was broken under the Affordable Care Act.

On the other hand, Dent said, Republicans will have to accept that some parts of ObamaCare will have to stay in place.

"We could find areas of agreement to improve this system," he said. "And again, no matter what we do, we have to do it on a bipartisan basis."

Dent isn't the only GOP lawmaker to call for bipartisan cooperation on healthcare reform. Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) said he is willing to pursue a bipartisan bill after the GOP plan failed Friday.


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http://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/325797-gop-rep-congress-must-work-on-bipartisan-healthcare-bill

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   Strange Virus seems to have overtaken DC, the 'Work with Dems' strain.