Getting Insurance Subsidy Bill Passed Will Be Herculean Task, But ‘Stranger Things Have Happened’
Senate HELP Chairman Lamar Alexander and ranking Democrat Patty Murray have a history of shepherding through seemingly impossible bipartisan bills, but the odds are against them when it comes to the first attempt at fixing the Affordable Care Act since repeal efforts failed. Meanwhile, both Democratic and Republican governors chime in urging the administration to pay the subsidies.
Politico:
New Bipartisan Obamacare Push Faces Steep Climb
There’s never been a major bipartisan Obamacare bill, and the path to passing one now — after the death of Senate Republicans' repeal effort — is steep. Senate HELP Chairman Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) and ranking Democrat Patty Murray of Washington are up against both time and history in their race to stabilize the shaky Obamacare markets and solidify their status as the chamber’s top dealmakers. (Haberkorn and Cancryn, 8/3)
The Associated Press:
Bipartisan Drive To Pay Health Insurers Faces Senate Hurdles
A bipartisan Senate effort to continue federal payments to insurers and avert a costly rattling of health insurance markets faces a dicey future. The uncertainty shows that last week's wreck of the Republican drive to repeal the Affordable Care Act hasn't blunted the issue's sharp-edged politics. (Fram, 8/2)
CQ HealthBeat:
Senate Health Panel Gears Up For Insurance Hearings
Members of the Senate’s health committee welcomed a sharp change in the chamber’s approach to insurance legislation, while acknowledging the tight timeline the panel will be up against. Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Chairman Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., on Tuesday laid out a plan to hold hearings the week of Sept. 4 on ways to control costs for insurance plans sold on government-run exchanges, which serve about 11 million people. (McIntire, 8/2)
Nashville Tennessean:
Congressional Health Insurance Hearings 'A Positive Step,' State Insurance Commissioner Says
Tennessee Insurance Commissioner Julie Mix McPeak on Wednesday lauded Sen. Lamar Alexander’s decision to call for congressional hearings on stabilizing the individual health insurance market. But she stressed that President Donald Trump’s threat to pull the plug on federal subsidies to insurers remains a huge concern. Alexander’s announcement on Tuesday that the Senate committee he chairs will hold hearings next month on the individual market “is a positive step in the right direction,” McPeak said. (Collins, 8/2)
The Wall Street Journal:
Health Insurer Payments In Crosshairs
The health industry is heading into a pivotal few weeks that will determine whether the White House keeps making billions in payments to insurers or whether Congress will take over responsibility for them—decisions that rest on complex political calculations. President Donald Trump regularly decries the “cost-sharing reduction” payments as insurer bailouts, but he has so far kept making them. Republicans in Congress sued President Barack Obama to end them, but many now hope Mr. Trump will continue them. And congressional Democrats, who openly favor the payments, failed to lock them in when they could. (Radnofsky and Hackman, 8/2)
Reuters:
U.S. Governors Urge Trump To Make Insurance Payments
Democratic and Republican U.S. governors on Wednesday urged the Trump administration, as well as Congress, to continue funding payments to health insurance companies that make Obamacare plans affordable, calling it critical to stabilizing the insurance marketplace. (Cornwell, 8/2)
The Hill:
Governors Press Trump To Make ObamaCare Payments
Governors from both parties are calling on the Trump administration to fully fund key subsidies to insurers under ObamaCare. President Trump is threatening to cancel the payments, known as cost-sharing reductions (CSRs), as he talks of how ObamaCare will “implode.” (Weixel, 8/2)
Marketplace:
Health Insurers Are Looking For A Little Certainty
Republican Sen. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee is promising bipartisan hearings after Labor Day to see if Congress can't come to some kind of agreement on how to stabilize the individual health insurance market. That's the market most affected by the Affordable Care Act and, not coincidentally, it's caught in the political crosshairs of congressional Republicans who want to get rid of it. (Ryssdal, 8/2)
