CHARLESTON — U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin said Tuesday there are a number of proposals he supports in the $1.75 trillion Build Back Better plan currently being worked on between congressional Democrats and the White House, but other proposals just cost too much.

Manchin, West Virginia’s lone Democratic lawmaker in the U.S. Senate, held a virtual briefing Tuesday afternoon with state media outlets one day after he held a press conference on Capitol Hill accusing progressive Democrats of holding the $1.2 trillion bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act hostage in the House of Representatives in order to get a vote on President Joe Biden’s package of social spending programs.

“We’ve been working for a long time,” Manchin said. “I’ve been dealing in good faith … they’ve all known where I am, what I’m for, what I’m against, where I have problems, and what I think we can work through and where they might be irreconcilable.”

Manchin and Biden have been conducting shuttle diplomacy, meeting over the last several weeks, including a trip by Manchin to Biden’s home in Delaware shortly before the President hopped on a plane for Scotland for a climate change conference with world leaders.

The Build Back Better plan, a continuation of several programs within the American Rescue Plan passed back in March and the American Families Plan, includes $1.75 trillion over 10 years for various social spending programs, including childcare, home health, clean energy projects and climate change mitigation, expansion of healthcare, affordable housing, and more.

Manchin said he supports expanding pre-Kindergarten, something West Virginia led the way on more than 20 years ago. He supports funding and investments for childcare, including opening it up for faith-based programs. Manchin also supports additional investments into home health care.

The senator also lent his support to a deal announced Tuesday afternoon that would put prescription drug price negotiations for Medicare back into the Build Back Better plan according to Politico. Stripped down from a more expansive program, the new plan would cap insulin at $35; cap out-of-pocket Medicare costs at $2,000; allow negotiation in Medicare Parts B and D; and include a program to protect Medicare recipients from annual price increases.

“It’s not going to be the big deal that I really think that we all were expecting, but it’s going to be a deal and at least we’re moving in the right direction,” Manchin said. “I think there’s a lot of good and I’m understanding there could be about $200 billion in savings over a 10-year period.”

Manchin remains opposed to anything in the Build Back Better plan that speeds up the insolvency of Social Security or Medicare, such as adding dental, vision, and hearing benefits. According to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Medicare could go insolvent as soon as 2026 at its current pace. According to the Social Security Administration, that program could become insolvent by 2037.

“As much as I would like to do hearing and dental and eye care and all that, it’s just something right now that would be in jeopardy of the insolvency that we have right now to accelerate that,” Manchin said. “Let’s wait until we are able to stable our finances. It’s like anybody else in your own personal life or your businesses or whatever you do to make sure you get your financial house in order before you start expanding and spending more.”

While Manchin said he supports unpaid family leave, he said he couldn’t get behind paid family leave due to the added costs. Manchin also believes that paid family leave would not make it through the Senate’s budget reconciliation process, where the Senate parliamentarian can review and veto certain provisions in a reconciliation bill using the Byrd Rule, named for the late West Virginia U.S. Sen. Robert C. Byrd.

Manchin also doesn’t believe the final cost of Build Back Better will be $1.75 trillion, which would be paid for in part with a corporate minimum tax on large corporations, surcharges on stock buybacks, and IRS enforcement for collection of back taxes. Manchin supports rolling back some of the 2017 corporate tax rates lowered by former president Donald Trump to help pay for Build Back Better, but he is also concerned it won’t be enough to cover the costs.

“Guess what? All the spending programs you’ve been hearing about are not 10 years,” Manchin said. “They’re trying to get the price and all the things they want to fit in that 10-year revenue stream.”

On Monday, Manchin called on the House to pass on the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, the hard infrastructure bill passed by the Senate in August. House progressives have been delaying action on the bill in order to get the Build Back Better framework finalized and passed. Manchin has consistently called for a pause on Build Back Better to give lawmakers time to review the bill text once it is finalized.

“I said, ‘enough is enough’ If they think they’re going to hold any of this process hostage thinking they’re going to force me to do things when I’ve been upfront,” Manchin said. “The President knows exactly where I’m at. I’ve been trying to be as transparent as possible. And I’m not going to sign off on a couple of things that were in there that I think needed a lot more work.”