Schumer says Finance Committee willing to move Democrat-only health bill

The Senate Finance Committee may ditch pursuing bipartisan support for its healthcare reform bill and report a package passed only with Democratic support, one of the committee’s members threatened this weekend.

Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), a member of the Finance Committee, said that while the committee is still engaged in negotiations to come up with the only bipartisan healthacre reform bill in Congress, it may scrap that effort if it cannot reach a consensus.

“Our preference far and away is for a bipartisan bill,” Schumer said during an interview on Bloomberg News this weekend. “If we can’t come to a bipartisan agreement, the Finance Committee will report out a Democratic bill.”

Members of the Finance Committee have sought to craft a version of healthcare legislation to complement bills crafted by House Democrats and the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee. Centrist members of the Senate wrote both parties’ leadership asking to give the Finance Committee more time to negotiate, though a self-imposed deadline of passing preliminary legislation before the August recess quickly approaches.

And while members of the Finance Committee in both parties have maintained that they strongly prefer a bipartisan proposal, Schumer’s comments signal that Democrats may be forced to go it alone on a bill in order to win passage.

Schumer also took shot at the Congressional Budget Office’s (CBO) costly analyses of Democrats’ healthcare bills as a bit “wacky.”

“CBO’s scoring is a little bit wacky,” he said. “They are not quite fair because they don’t measure the cost savings down the road, just the immediate spending.”

CBO’s reports on the House and HELP Committee healthcare bills have been a bit of a political burden for Democrats as they seek to craft legislation ahead of the August congressional recess.

Schumer joined the ranks of some other top Democrats in the House and Senate to cast aspersions at the CBO analyses of the majority’s healthcare plans.