Two Republican senators aren’t deterred by conservative pushback to their Obamacare replacement plan, saying if President Trump is serious about giving insurance to everybody, their idea is the best way to go.
Sens. Bill Cassidy, of Louisiana, and Susan Collins, of Maine, are working with lawmakers in both chambers to whip up support for their replacement plan. Their efforts come as Congress prepares to introduce a long-awaited bill to repeal the healthcare law by early March.
The Cassidy-Collins bill, titled the Patient Freedom Act, gives states the option of keeping Obamacare as is, using extra federal money for health savings accounts or designing their own alternative without federal assistance.
Collins and Cassidy weren’t fazed last week when the conservative House Freedom Caucus endorsed a competing plan from Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky.
“That is not exactly a surprise,” Collins told reporters last week.
She said that she hasn’t made a decision on whether she would vote for Paul’s plan if it comes up in the Senate.
“I’m not going to touch anything until we have specifics,” she said. “I think the bill Sen. Cassidy and I have come up with is the one comprehensive approach that is out there.”
Cassidy told the Washington Examiner in a recent interview that the bill can preserve insurance coverage, and he pointed to remarks from Trump that he wants to give insurance to everybody.
“The elements in our plan are the only way to get to those goals,” he said. “If you don’t care if your coverage goes away, then you could do it a different way.”
Paul has criticized the plan, saying it keeps Obamacare intact and that conservatives won’t rally around it.
Paul’s own plan would give people seeking coverage on the individual market, which is for people who don’t have insurance and includes Obamacare’s marketplaces, a tax credit of up to $5,000 that would go into a health savings account.
Rep. Mark Sanford, R-S.C., created a House version of the plan, which got the nod from the Freedom Caucus.
But it is not clear if Congress will move forward with either plan.
House Speaker Paul Ryan has said that he expects to issue a repeal plan for Obamacare by early March. Any legislation is now being scored by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, which will examine its impact on spending, insurance coverage and budget levels over the next decade.
Sources have said the House is aiming to include replacement provisions in the repeal plan.
Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., told reporters last week that lawmakers are working with the Senate parliamentarian to see which measures can be approved via reconciliation, a process that enables a piece of legislation to be approved in the chamber with only 51 votes.
Reconciliation can be used only for a bill that addresses spending and budgetary levels. The Senate parliamentarian, an adviser and interpreter of Senate rules, decides whether a bill meets the criteria.
In 2015, congressional Republicans crafted legislation that repealed parts of Obamacare such as its taxes and mandates.
Cassidy said that he has been in communication with Rep. Pete Sessions, R-Texas, who is proposing the Collins-Cassidy plan in the House.
“I have spoken with numerous members of the House,” Cassidy said. “The issue is how do you pay for things and how do you sequence it vis-a-vis tax reform.”
