President Donald Trump said on Saturday that Obamacare is "badly broken," but hinted that he might be able to craft a health care deal with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, who is a Democrat. | Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images Trump reached out to Schumer to work on 'great HealthCare Bill' But the Senate Democratic leader said he rebuffed Trump's suggestion of another Obamacare repeal effort.

President Donald Trump said on Saturday that he had talked with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer to see if Democrats want to help on a “great HealthCare Bill” — but Schumer separately indicated the conversation didn’t exactly go smoothly.

"I called Chuck Schumer yesterday to see if the Dems want to do a great HealthCare Bill. ObamaCare is badly broken, big premiums. Who knows!" the president wrote on Twitter Saturday morning.


Schumer, in a statement, said Trump had suggested another Obamacare repeal-and-replace effort, which the New York Democrat said was a non-starter.

"The president wanted to make another run at repeal and replace and I told the president that's off the table,” Schumer said. “If he wants to work together to improve the existing health care system, we Democrats are open to his suggestions. A good place to start might be the Alexander-Murray negotiations that would stabilize the system and lower costs."

Later Saturday night, Trump told reporters that whether or not a deal comes to fruition is on Democrats like Schumer.

"It's really up to them," Trump said, according to a pool report. "It's exploding, like I said it would."



Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee Chairman Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) and ranking member Patty Murray (D-Wash.) have been working on a bipartisan agreement to fund Obamacare's insurance subsidies and provide some certainty to health insurance markets after the latest repeal effort failed last month.

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On Saturday morning, a Democratic aide did not express optimism about bipartisan cooperation with the White House on health care.

“Particularly after the birth control decision yesterday, the administration has to stop sabotaging the law before anything real can happen,” the aide said, referencing the administration’s sweeping rollback that will allow virtually any employer to claim a religious or moral objection to Obamacare's birth control coverage mandate.

Republicans are grappling over the future of the Affordable Care Act, after failing to meet a deadline late last month that would have allowed them to repeal Obamacare on a party-line vote. Despite years of promising to gut former President Barack Obama's health care law, the GOP has struggled to find a bill that satisfies the various factions of their party.

As for a possible partnership with Schumer, Trump already reportedly angered Republicans when he sided with Democratic congressional leaders over a debt limit and government funding deal in September. The president has also repeatedly criticized Senate Republicans, even though the party holds a slim majority in the chamber.