Chuck Schumer Deplores Secrecy On GOP Health Care Bill In Letter To Mitch McConnell

WASHINGTON, DC — Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer sent a letter to Sen. Mitch McConnell Friday requesting an "All-Senators meeting" to discuss health care, adding that his party is "dismayed" that Republican work on drafting an alternative to Obamacare had been extensively conducted in secret.

"The U.S. Senate has long been considered the world's greatest deliberative body and, as members of that body, we should each support open and robust debate," Schumer wrote to the Republican Senate majority leader. "That is why we are dismayed at the reports that there will be no public hearings on your proposed changes to the American health care system." (For more information on this and other political stories, subscribe to the White House Patch for daily newsletters and breaking news alerts.)

He also noted: "Our health care system affects every single American and one-sixth of our economy. We believe we owe it to our constituents to pursue any bipartisan potential legislation because it profoundly impacts so many American lives."

He asked for the meeting to take place next week and said Democrats and Republicans should work together on solutions to this issue.

Despite its low profile in recent weeks, the Republican effort to repeal and replace Obamacare continues as Republicans in the Senate deliberate behind closed doors about how to fulfill their pledge to undo the law. GOP lawmakers are eschewing the typical procedures that go along with crafting major legislation, such as open hearings, coordinating with interest groups and negotiating with the opposing party.

"Better to pass a terrible bill in the cover of darkness just as the House did with its version, the American Health Care Act, in the hopes that critics do not have much time to raise a stink," the New York Times editorial board wrote of the process.

When asked why the negotiations around the bill haven't been public, one GOP Senate aide told Axios, "We're not stupid." The implication is that if the public finds out what the Republicans are working on, there will be widespread opposition. This may be because, as Patch recently discussed, the bulk of existing GOP legislation on Obamacare is designed around providing tax cuts, not improving health care.

Tara Golshan, a reporter for Vox, transcribed one characteristic conversation she had Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona, in which he would not say what policy goals the GOP was trying to achieve with the legislation:

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