Sen. Tammy Baldwin shares personal health care story

"First of all, health care is deeply personal."

That's how Democratic Senator Tammy Baldwin began a conversation with CNN's Chris Cuomo when she dropped by "New Day" Monday morning to talk about the Senate GOP's controversial health care bill.

To prove how deeply personal she thinks it is, the Wisconsin politician provided her own story: "For me, I was a child who had a very serious illness and then was labeled as a kid with a pre-existing condition. My grandparents, who raised me, couldn't find insurance at any price for a large part of my youth and I know my story is replicated by thousands upon thousands of Wisconsinites, millions upon millions of Americans."

Repeating that health care is "deeply personal," she explained the Democrats' opposition to the Senate bill, saying, "Part of what we have been doing in exposing what the House passed and now what was revealed in the Senate is engaging the voice of the American people because that's really the only thing. What can Democrats do when we're in the minority in the House, the minority in the Senate, we don't have the presidency? It is engage the American people in speaking out about this."

"We've not only got to take on this fight with everything we have," she told Cuomo, "we've got to win."

The bill was unveiled last Thursday after Republicans drafted it without hearings.

As for whether she believes there will be a vote on the bill before the congressional recess set for July 4, Baldwin said she doesn't know what Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell will do, but she added, "Delay doesn't make this bill any better."

When Cuomo said he wasn't seeing any effort from Democrats to negotiate, the senator responded, "On the contrary, I talk about this all the time. What we need to do is fix the Affordable Care Act, not scrap the Affordable Care Act. They would have willing partners the day they stopped the partisan nonsense of trying to repeal something nicknamed after the former President and started working to advance affordable health care for the American people."

House Republicans passed the American Health Care Act last month in accordance with President Donald Trump's campaign promise to "repeal and replace Obamacare."