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Senators Seek Deal To Fund Healthcare Subsidies That Trump Eliminated
Trump and Republicans are destroying the Affordable Care Act despite the inability to repeal or replace it. Trump's sabotage hit a disgusting new low last week ending the funding of subsidies paid to insurance companies to make coverage affordable for millions. They're known as "cost-sharing reduction" payments. This action will destroy the Affordable Care Act insurance markets and eliminate healthcare for millions and that's exactly why Trump team suggested it.
Less than a week after Trump said he is cutting off subsidies to health insurance companies, lawmakers say they have a deal to restore the money and take other actions that could stabilize insurance markets for next year. Sens. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., and Patty Murray, D-Wash., say they have a tentative agreement to appropriate the subsidies for the next two years, restore money used to encourage people to sign up for Affordable Care Act health plans and make it easier for states to design their own alternative health care systems.
A draft of the bill... requires health plans to offer the subsidies as one-time or monthly rebates to consumers, or they would be repaid to the federal government. ....the payments will benefit consumers and not insurance companies.
However, just because a Republican and Democratic Senator agreed to this doesn't mean anything yet. First, it will have to even see the light of day in the Senate, and then it will need significant Republican support to pass. Paul Ryan, Speaker of the House, has already come out against. Of course, Trump has too.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., would not commit to bringing the bill up for a vote, as Murray and Alexander seek enough support to ensure the bill could pass. It would need 60 votes to get across the finish line, and would require at least a dozen Republicans to take a difficult political step in voting to shore up parts of Obamacare.
The proposed deal does several other very important things we must support:
1) The agreement would also restore $106 million in money to publicize the open enrollment period for ACA health insurance. Trump had cut the budget for ACA outreach by 90 percent earlier this year, a move many advocates said would suppress enrollment.
2) The agreement... would also make it easier for states to get waivers so they can set up alternative health insurance systems, and offer a wider variety of insurance policies. Alexander said those plans would retain the minimum coverage requirements under the Affordable Care Act
Trump, meanwhile, thinks the ACA is dead and is very proud that Americans will suffer and lives will be lost.
Trump, during a press conference Tuesday in the Rose Garden with Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, declared the Affordable Care Act "virtually dead"....
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