I would not get too excited about Schumer saying Single Payer is

[riversedge]

'on the table'. He has other things on the Dem agenda that to first or have priorities. Just saying.


Transcript:


'This Week' Transcript 7-23-17: Jay Sekulow, Sarah Sanders, and Sen. Chuck Schumer
By ABCNews Jul 23, 2017, 9:32 AM ET


http://abcnews.go.com/amp/Politics/week-transcript-23-17-jay-sekulow-sarah-huckabee/story?id=48791003

...................... STEPHANOPOULOS: -- it's going to be bold enough. I mean even your New York colleague, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, talking about health care, says if you really want to get prices down, you have to go to single payer health care.

Will Democrats unify behind single payer health care?

SCHUMER: Well, our economic agenda -- we've talked so much about health care that we are not going to address that in this agenda.

We've been talking about it. And let me just say, the first thing we're going to do should -- first, I think that this -- the TrumpCare will not pass. It just is...

STEPHANOPOULOS: You think it's dead?

SCHUMER: I think it's very unlikely to pass, because it's rotten to the core. People are not for reducing taxes on rich people or getting rid of Medicaid, which is a very, very middle class, now, thing, as well as for poor people.

So the first things we're going to propose -- if the Republican -- and the Republicans hopefully will join us, once they abandon this rotten bill, is some cost-sharing, which the insurance companies say will help bring down premiums and stabilize the market, something else that Republicans have often supported, which is reinsurance, proposed by Tom Carper and Tim Kaine.

And Claire McCaskill has proposed something in the bare counties, B-A-R-E -- you can -- if you can't get insurance in those counties, you can get the same kind of health insurance we get.

Then we're going to look at broader things -- single payer is one of them...

STEPHANOPOULOS: So that is...

SCHUMER: -- Medicare...

STEPHANOPOULOS: -- on the table?

SCHUMER: -- well, a -- sure. Many things are on the table. Medicare for people above 55 is on the table. A buy-in to Medicare is on the table. A buy-in to Medicaid is on the table.

On the broader issues, we will start examining them once we stabilize the system.

And our Republican colleagues have said should -- even Mitch McConnell alluded to the fact that should their bill fail, they'll work with us these first stabilization things.

Then Democrats and Republicans, who will have different ideas, should sit down and talk about how we can improve the system. And the one thing we insist on, we not do what they did, which is just 10 Republicans, four Republicans in a room, not even including us. Regular order -- hearings, committees, go through the process.

But on this agenda, we are going to really shake things up and we're going to fill the vacuum that Donald Trump left when he campaigned on some of the things like this and then abandoned them for the hard right Koch brothers.

STEPHANOPOULOS: A final question. You heard Mr. Sekulow on this issue of whether the president pardon himself.

[elleng]

1. 'we've talked so much about health care that we are not going to address that in this agenda.'

[guillaumeb]

2. Talking about something is not actually accomplishing anything.

The agenda must not be simply words on a page, it must be something that the Democratic Party supports and works to enact.

Health is something that hits everyone, it is not a side issue or a distraction. Single payer in a limited form already exists in Medicare. Medicare should be expanded by allowing people aged 45 and up to enroll. That would offer a real alternative to private insurance companies.

[elleng]

3. Obviously!

[MiddleClass]

4. Here we go, explaining again.

Schulman knows, when you're explaining, you're losing