Pelosi Offers to Help Trump on Health Care; Speier Says He Is on 'Thin Ice'

Fresh from seeing President Donald Trump's health care bill crash and burn in the House of Representatives on Friday, Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said Saturday that she'd work with the White House to improve the very law the president and House Speaker Paul Ryan had tried to kill.

"I extend my hand to the president if he wants to improve the Affordable Care Act," Pelosi told a crowd of several hundred people gathered at a town hall meeting at Balboa High School in San Francisco.

Specifically, Pelosi said Democrats were open to collaborating on reducing the cost of prescription drug prices and ensuring that states can operate their own health care exchanges.

"Before the ACA, insurance companies ruled the roost," she said. "We don't have to throw it out" to improve it.

Pelosi shared the stage with Congresswoman Jackie Speier (D-San Mateo), who sits on the House Intelligence Committee that is investigating Russian involvement in the November election.

When an audience member asked about "the definition of treason," Speier cut to the chase, noting "you're talking about impeachment." She went on to say "we have to build a case" against Trump, adding that the president "is on thin ice."

Both lawmakers said Congress needs to demand Trump's tax returns to find out the truth about the president's connections to Russia.

"What do the Russians have on Donald Trump, politically, personally and financially, that they (the administration) are so afraid of?" Pelosi asked.

If the two Democrats thought they'd find an adoring crowd that came to thank them for helping to defeat the health care bill, they were wrong. Much of the energy in the audience seemed focused on pushing them to support a single-payer health system like the ones in England and Canada.

The first audience question was more of a long argument for a socialized health system that some are calling "Medicare for all," which would eliminate insurance companies.

Pelosi, unruffled by the at times unruly crowd, noted: "I supported single payer since before you were born."

"If we started tabula rasa — from scratch — I'd cover the country with community health centers rather than hospitals," the San Francisco Democrat said, suggesting that promoting good health and prevention was the most cost-effective foundation for health care.

As for whether health care should be not-for-profit like a single-payer system, Pelosi said, "that's a discussion we should have in our country" — to which many in the crowd replied, "Yes!"

One audience member who described himself as a social worker said defeat of the Republican health care bill meant "we dodged a bullet." But he wanted to know what Democrats will do if the Trump administration tries to "rewrite and dismantle" regulations of ACA that would weaken it and "give insurance companies cover to drop out of the market."

Pelosi reiterated her offer to work with the administration, knowing full well that the White House might prefer to see Obamacare diminished rather than strengthened.

"This is an administration that is trying to deconstruct government," Pelosi said, acknowledging the difficulty of a San Francisco liberal finding common ground with Donald Trump.