Campaign Action
The bipartisan hearings in the Senate on stabilizing the Affordable Care Act continue this week, and there’s more intent to actually do something to fix the law in one committee than in another. Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch, chair of the Finance Committee, doesn't intend to do much to actually fix existing problems, calling bipartisan efforts to shore up Obamacare's insurance market a "bailout."
On the other hand, Tennessee Sen. Lamar Alexander, the chairman of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions committee, was the first out of the gates to schedule hearings when the last repeal effort died in the Senate. He's held several hearings since last week, getting testimony from insurers, governors, and state insurance officials on what needs to be done to the law. This week he continued with insurers, who have three essential requests:
1. Stop playing a game of chicken with federal subsidies that help lower-income people afford their deductibles and co-pays. […]
2. Extend a reinsurance program that provides payments to plans with high-cost members. […]
3. Enforce the individual mandate, the requirement that people carry insurance, to make sure that it isn’t just the sick (and expensive) people who sign up for plans.
They are also asking that the federal government continue marketing and recruitment efforts for every enrollment period, the latest target of Trump's sabotage. Mostly, what the insurers want is certainty. They don't want a government playing games with their business, just like people don't want the government playing games with their health care.
Given Hatch's hostility to making these improvements, it's hard to know how far these bipartisan efforts from the HELP committee can progress. Hatch would have the power to block quite a bit that's under his committee's jurisdiction, assuming Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is inclined to follow regular order now. That seems likely, since we're talking about fixing Obamacare, rather than repealing it.