Months ago, the leadership of America’s health insurance industry pleaded with Donald Trump and Republicans in Congress to help stabilize healthcare markets across the country, which have been roiled with uncertainty caused by his threat to terminate the Affordable Care Act cost-sharing funds that are vital to 7 million working Americans having healthcare coverage.
Donald Trump has not done as health insurers asked, and insurance companies across the country have forced out of various markets. These insurers have explicitly said that, were it not for Trump’s jeopardizing of cost-sharing subsidies, costs for consumers next year would be significantly lower.
But today, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who has been locked in a desperate struggle to convince even enough Republicans to support Trumpcare, broke new ground and acknowledged the urgency for bringing much-needed stability to health insurance markets.
“If Mitch McConnell and Donald Trump are really concerned about private insurance markets, they could start showing it by ending their sabotage campaign that is reducing insurance options and raising costs for American families,” said American Bridge President Jessica Mackler. “It’s time for the GOP to show some leadership, put their flailing Trumpcare efforts on hold, and stop trying to coerce Senators into supporting Affordable Care Act repeal by sabotaging the health insurance that millions are counting on.”
The American public has rejected Trumpcare. The Senate bill, which was written behind closed doors and exclusively by Republicans, is now only supported by 16% of voters. McConnell was forced to abandon plans for a vote on the Senate Trumpcare plan last week; and today, Republican Senators have expressed that a vote won’t be possible for weeks.
This is because, as the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office determined, Trumpcare would cost 22 million Americans their health insurance, make healthcare costs skyrocket, gut the Affordable Care Act’s protections for Americans suffering from preexisting conditions like Alzheimer’s, and cause unprecedented cuts to Medicaid – all to cut taxes for the wealthiest Americans.
The leading healthcare experts in the United States, such as the American Medical Association, as well as organizations representing patients, like the American Cancer Society, are also strongly opposed to Trumpcare.
Associated Press: McConnell says limited bill needed if GOP health bill dies
By BRUCE SCHREINER and ALAN FRAM
Associated Press
GLASGOW, Ky. (AP) – A bill focused on buttressing the nation’s insurance marketplaces will be needed if the full-fledged Republican effort to repeal much of President Barack Obama’s health care law fails, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Thursday. It was one of his most explicit acknowledgments that his party’s top-priority drive to erase much of Obama’s landmark 2010 statutes might fall short.
The remarks by McConnell, R-Ky., also implicitly meant that to show progress on health care, Republicans controlling the White House and Congress might have to negotiate with Democrats. While the current, wide-ranging GOP health care bill – which McConnell is still hoping to push through the Senate – has procedural protections against a Democratic Senate filibuster, a subsequent, narrower measure would not and would take 60 votes to pass.
The existing bill would fail if just three of the 52 Republicans vote no, since all Democrats oppose it. McConnell was forced to cancel a planned vote on the measure last week after far more Republicans than that objected, and he’s been spending the Independence Day recess studying possible changes that might win over GOP dissidents.
“If my side is unable to agree on an adequate replacement, then some kind of action with regard to the private health insurance market must occur,” McConnell said at a Rotary Club lunch in this deep-red rural area in southern Kentucky. He made the comment after being asked if he envisioned needing bipartisan cooperation to replace Obama’s law.
“No action is not an alternative,” McConnell said. “We’ve got the insurance markets imploding all over the country, including in this state.”
Even as Republicans have struggled to write legislation they can pass, some have acknowledged that if they encountered problems, a smaller bill with quicker help for insurers and consumers might be needed. They’ve said it could include provisions continuing federal payments to insurers that help them contain costs for lower-earning customers, and some inducements to keep healthy people buying policies – a step that helps curb premiums.
Trump, McConnell, House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., and other Republicans have all said Obama’s law is failing, citing markets around the country where insurers have pulled out or sharply boosted premiums.
Democrats acknowledge Obama’s law needs changes that would help curb the growth of health care costs. But they say the GOP is exaggerating the problem and note that several insurers have attributed their decisions to stop selling policies in unprofitable areas, in part, to indications from the Trump administration that it may halt federal payments to insurers that help them control costs for many customers.
In its report last week on the Senate bill, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said that under Obama’s law, it expected health care markets “to be stable in most areas.”
It said the same about the Senate legislation. But it also said under the GOP bill, 22 million added Americans would be uninsured because it would eliminate Obama’s tax penalty on people who don’t buy coverage and it would cut Medicaid, the health insurance program for the poor, disabled and many nursing home patients.
McConnell spoke hours after Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, said the bill’s prospects were “precarious.” Speaking on San Antonio’s KTSA Radio, Cruz said the GOP’s Senate majority “is so narrow, I don’t know if we can get it done or not.”
Further qualms were voiced by Sen. Jerry Moran, R-Kan.
“There are people who tell me they are better off” under Obama’s law, “and I believe them,” Moran said at a town hall meeting Thursday in Palco, Kansas. Moran, who’d said he could not support the current version of the bill, said health care is “almost impossible to solve” with the slim GOP majority in the Senate.
Another Republican, Sen. Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania, suggested it may take some time before McConnell can win enough support for the GOP legislation.
“We’re still several weeks away from a vote, I think,” Toomey said Wednesdayduring an hour-long appearance before a live studio audience at WHTM-TV in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
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AP reporter Marc Levy contributed from Harrisburg, John Hanna from Palco and Fram from Washington.
Copyright 2017 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Published: Jul 6, 2017