Senate Democrats Ask GOP Leaders to Collaborate on ACA

More than a dozen self-described moderate Senate Democrats sent a letter to top Republicans asking them not to repeal the Affordable Care Act and work with Democrats to fix the law.

Led by Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia, 13 democrats wrote to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.); Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee Chairman Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) and Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) Thursday urging them to abandon plans to repeal Obamacare using a budget resolution and the reconciliation tool, and to instead work in a bipartisan manner to improve the health care law.

“By pushing an immediate repeal through a partisan reconciliation process, we won’t have the opportunity to work together and build on common ground,” they write. “By moving forward with no plan in place for the future of our health care system, those who support repeal assume the responsibility of mitigating the unnecessary and avoidable chaos this will create.”

GOP leaders are already charging ahead with plans to repeal the law as soon as February, and the Senate is debating a budget resolution with instructions to committees to draft reconciliation legislation that would allow the Senate to repeal Obamacare with a simple majority of 51 votes.