Democratic leaders in the U.S. Senate are pushing an artificial deadline for health care and, thus, pushing Republican lawmakers away from negotiations, Sen. Chuck Grassley said Tuesday in a statement.
Grassley also returned to two debunked rumors about the health care bill, that it will provide money for abortion and that it will provide health insurance for illegal immigrants, as reasons why he cannot support the legislation in its current form.
“I’m disappointed because it looks like we’re being pushed aside by the Democratic leadership so the Senate can move forward on a bill that, up to this point, does not meet the shared goals for affordable, accessible health coverage that we set forth when this process began,” Grassley said. “In addition to concerns about costs to taxpayers and affordability for individuals, there are still some serious outstanding issues that have yet to be resolved like preventing taxpayer funding of abortion services and the enforcement against subsidies for illegal aliens.”
Grassley said he would like to “keep working until we get it right,” and pressed for Democrats to allow negotiations to continue.
Montana Democratic Sen. Max Baucus, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee who has led the efforts to develop bipartisan health care legislation with Grassley, released a detailed outline of health care legislation on Wednesday and promised to convene the committee next week to vote on it. Many health care reform advocates have been pushing Democrats to move forward with or without Republicans for several weeks, fearing their efforts at bipartisanship were simply attempts to stall and eventually kill any reform legislation.
Despite months of negotiations and a bill that offers many concessions to conservative lawmakers, no Republicans have agreed to support the framework, which calls for health insurance co-ops and does not include a public option.