With the GOP’s last-ditch attempt in Congress to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act (ACA) done for now, President Trump introduced the idea of working with Democrats to change healthcare in America, perhaps another signal that a bipartisan solution to stabilizing insurance markets in 2018 may be possible.
Here’s what the President had to say in USA Today yesterday: “I’m also going to meet with Democrats and I will see if I can get a healthcare plan that’s even better.”
USA Today reported that the President hoped to have a vote on healthcare in the first quarter of 2018, adding, “In the meantime, the president said he plans to sign an executive order – likely next week – that would enable people to buy health insurance across state lines, though there is some question as to whether a president has the authority to effect such a change.”
The chair of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), said yesterday that he would consult with other senators in an effort to find consensus for bipartisan legislation to help lower insurance costs for Americans purchasing health insurance on government exchanges. The committee already held four days of hearings this month featuring testimony from governors, state insurance officials, healthcare experts and insurance executives. After the hearings, the committee seemed to be on a path to draft bipartisan legislation that would continue cost-sharing reduction (CSR) payments to insurance companies providing health insurance policies on government healthcare exchanges and provide greater flexibility to states in developing solutions to their healthcare challenges. The bipartisan effort was put on hold when Republican leadership in the Senate made the ill-fated decision to push the Graham-Cassidy bill in a failed final attempt to repeal and replace the ACA this year.
Senate Speaker Mitch McConnell (R-KY) appeared open to the limited bipartisan legislative approach to addressing issues with the ACA championed by the Senate health committee. A report by ABC News quoted Sen. McConnel as saying, “We are ready to move forward on the kind of agreement they’ve talked about.”
Ohio Governor John Kasich may have said it best when speaking at Fortune‘s CEO Initiative conference in New York on Monday. According to a report from Yahoo Finance, Kasich said of healthcare reform: “It should be bipartisan. You can’t fix anything [without that].”