For a brief few hours on Tuesday, we had a return to normal, if you squinted at it right and totally ignored the orange blob off to the side. Two powerful senators came to a bipartisan agreement to fix the looming crisis of Trump's Obamacare sabotage and actually do their job. The agreement that Sens. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) and Patty Murray (D-WA) came to is smart policy-making. It would restore the payments to insurers Donald Trump has cut off, stabilizing the insurance markets and guaranteeing more affordable care for millions for 2017-19. It would fund outreach for open enrollment for 2018 and 2019 plan years. It would maintain all of the law's consumer protections, but would give states additional flexibility in obtaining waivers from some of the ACA's coverage requirements.
It happened the way legislation is supposed to happen. There was fact-finding. There were hearings where senators heard from a variety of experts. There was work and discussions back and forth between the leaders of the committee and they came to an agreement. It was done with such regular order, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) says he's on board. Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA), who's been busy pushing his own repeal plan likes it. But it's 2017 and Trump is president so you know it was too good to last, and would get weird.
According to Alexander, Trump "completely engineered the plan" and also insisted "Sen. Murray to be a part of it." That was Wednesday morning. In fact, on Wednesday morning, Alexander was interviewed by Axios's Mike Allen "immediately after getting off the phone with President Trump, who called to encourage him about the bipartisan healthcare bill he announced yesterday with Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA)." Alexander says that Trump told him "he wants to review the plan carefully, admitted he is still for block grants, but said he is willing to support this bipartisan measure in the short term."
In fact, last night while speaking to the Heritage Foundation, Trump "commended 'the bipartisan work' of Alexander and Murray but suggested that a different kind of fix is needed." That was after his earlier press conference with the Greek prime minister, during which news of the deal broke. Asked about it there, Trump said that "Yes, we have been involved, and this is a short-term deal," that would "get us over this intermediate hump" giving Republicans more time to come up with that replacement plan that really is going to happen someday and totally has the votes to pass.
This morning, this very morning, Alexander says Trump called him to encourage him on the plan that Trump engineered. Then this.
In just 24 hours, Trump went from totally being a part of the negotiations to being opposed to it. Is that enough to kill the deal? Maybe?