Sen. Joe Manchin said Sunday that bipartisan groups can work together to achieve healthcare reform that doesn’t "have to be so mean-spirited"and lacking in "compassion"as the current GOP Senate proposal.
In an interview on CBS News’ "Face The Nation,"the West Virginia Democrat said "there’s an awful lot that can be done to improve"the current Senate proposal.
Manchin said he’d been speaking with "some of my colleagues"about working groups, including Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Bill Cassidy of Louisiana..
"I’ve said ‘if you can take repeal off the table… I’m in with you and we’ll get more Democrats to sit down’,"he asserted. "We’re not hindered from our side whatsoever.”
"This is about our country,"he said. "You have to have a policy that gets [people] healthier.”
Manchin said giving people a healthcare card, if they use it as they now use Obamacare, will be at "the highest cost.”
"Can we help them be more and better educated on how to use them?"he asked.
"But not just throwing them off. Why does it have to be so mean-spirited, why can’t [there] be some compassion, say, ‘This is how you can keep it, this is how you use your healthcare, it’s going to make you a better person, it’s going to give you opportunities. ’That’s what we should be doing.”
Manchin, who is up for reelection in 2018 in a state President Donad Trump won by a large margin, characterized the GOP bill in the upper chamber as "even worse" than the legislation passed last month by the House.
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