Shaheen: Trump Urging Flexibility on Abortion Funding ‘Helpful’ to Obamacare Subsidy Deal

On Wednesday’s broadcast of Bloomberg’s “Balance of Power,” Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) stated that President Donald Trump urging Republicans to be flexible on taxpayer funding of abortion is “helpful” to getting a deal on Obamacare subsidies.

Co-host Joe Mathieu asked, “[T]here’s an important vote in the House today on extending Obamacare subsidies, a floor vote following the procedural is set for tomorrow, and there are big questions about whether this is going anywhere in the United States Senate. The President said something pretty interesting here, asking Republicans yesterday for flexibility around Hyde. And I’m wondering what you’re hearing from your Republican colleagues if a deal might be at hand.”

Shaheen responded, “I think the President’s comments on Hyde were helpful. What I hope is that the House is going to give a strong vote on [the] extension of the premium tax credits, that will send the bill to the Senate, a bipartisan group has been working on trying to come up with a compromise on addressing the extension of the premium tax credits. I think we’ve made a lot of progress. Hopefully, we’ll get that House bill and have a vehicle that we can then pass out of the Senate and send it back to the House. And I hope the President will finally get engaged on this issue in a way that will allow us to make progress and get this done. Because we have thousands of people in my home state of New Hampshire that are going to lose their health insurance, that are already seeing their premiums spike in a way that they can’t afford, millions of people across the country.”

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