Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (left) was to urge Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to set aside August time for votes on five Democratic-backed proposals aimed at expanding and lowering the cost of health care. | Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images Schumer to McConnell: Let's spend August on health care

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's move to scrap most of the chamber's August recess promises to rob politically imperiled Democratic incumbents of campaigning time, but Minority Leader Chuck Schumer is embracing the change with a pitch for how to spend it: health care.

Schumer (D-N.Y.) plans to send McConnell (R-Ky.) a letter on Wednesday asking him to set aside August time for votes on five Democratic-backed proposals aimed at expanding and lowering the cost of health care, which he previewed Tuesday after the Kentucky Republican announced plans to ax three of the Senate's four planned recess weeks during that month.


"We believe this previously unscheduled session time can be put to good use to finally help Americans secure the affordable health care the President and Congressional Republicans have thus far failed to deliver," Schumer wrote to McConnell in his letter, a copy of which was obtained by POLITICO.

Despite Schumer's request, McConnell and the Senate GOP anticipate using their extra August time to confirm more of President Donald Trump's judicial and executive-branch nominees, as well as move ahead on spending bills for the coming fiscal year.

But the New York Democrat's seizing on health care as an animating topic for August shows that the minority — contrary to the Republican assumption that its vulnerable members from red states would lose out with more time in Washington — wants to try to turn the extra time to its own advantage.

Democrats are gearing up ahead of November's midterm elections to slam Republican efforts to chip away at Obamacare, including the repeal of the law's individual mandate as part of last year's GOP tax bill, as the leading factor behind health insurance premium increases in the coming months.

"This sabotage also has those with pre-existing conditions once again facing the prospect of denied coverage, increased costs and medical bankruptcy," Schumer has written to McConnell.