Senators Launch Bipartisan Effort to Shore Up Obamacare

On Friday, the Republican-controlled Senate failed to pass legislation to repeal Obamacare, another humiliating defeat for Trump. Instead, there are signs of bipartisanship.

For those who aren’t familiar, the Affordable Care Act provides for the federal government to make significant monthly payments to insurers who participate in the individual health insurance exchanges. “So the president’s attitude is fairly simple”.

President Trump tweeted July 29 and July 31 that “bailouts” for insurance companies and members of Congress “will end very soon” if a health-care bill isn’t approved quickly, and Congress should be “paying what public pays”.

GREENE: Well, thanks for coming on. “You’ll be able to renew”. “Indeed, the Department nowhere argues in its intervention papers that it will adequately protect the States’ interests or even continue to prosecute the appeal”. “The answer is not millions more dollars of subsidies for insurance companies”. Is there really agreement among Republicans and Democrats on your committee right now to protect those subsidies? If they won’t do that, then we need a new Legislature and governor.

“BAILOUTS for Insurance Companies” certainly sounds like the sort of thing that most Americans would oppose, and, by suggesting that Obamacare necessarily means giving handouts to insurers, Trump and his team clearly hope to shift the tide of popular opinion back in their direction.

The most immediate threat to the individual market, which was established under the Affordable Care Act, is the possibility that President Trump may stop making reimbursement payments, known as cost-sharing reductions or CSRs, which help insurers them keep low-income individuals covered. That helps lower out-of-pocket expenses and deductibles and co-pays. More than 1 million Floridians get subsidies of various kinds to lower costs. And I wonder if there is – might be some truth to this. That’s what good bipartisan hearings do. “Without certainty on the cost-sharing reductions, most are going to assume that they’re not going to be paid, and that’s as much as a 20 percent rate hike”. A great many Republicans still don’t like requiring citizens to buy health insurance.

In Pennsylvania, about 360,000 people had individual plans they had bought on the federal health insurance marketplace at healthcare.gov as of February, according to a Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services report.

That put the Trump administration in the ironic position of defending a suit filed by other Republicans.

Trump may reportedly play hard ball on the issue and force Senators to take another health care vote in exchange for remitting the subsidies. Uncertainty drives costs up.

Hundreds of USA counties are at risk of losing access to private health coverage in 2018 as insurers consider pulling out of those markets. He used slogans like make America sick again. Anyone who has ever run a business knows you must build a customer base to be successful – and that there might be some lean times until you do. And health insurers could push the senators to add a repeal of the tax on health insurers – because they say that would really bring down premiums.