Sen. Lamar Alexander said Monday that he is confident that his Obamacare stabilization package brokered with Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., could be passed by the end of the year.
The Tennessee Republican and chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee told CNBC that if President Trump supported the deal, the legislation would be part of Congress’ end-of-year spending deal. But Trump has opposed the deal that would make Obamacare insurer payments for two years, calling the payments “bailouts.”
“I think the country could use a bipartisan solution on healthcare, and it wouldn’t hurt the president and Congress one bit to enact one,” he said.
The deal would pay insurers cost-sharing reduction payments to reimburse them for lowering co-pays and deductibles for low-income customers on Obamacare’s exchanges, as they are required to do under the law.
In exchange, states would get more power to waive Obamacare’s insurer regulations.
Trump halted the payments last month, leading insurers to raise premiums on the exchanges by double digits to recoup the cost.
Alexander-Murray has support among 12 Republicans and all Democrats, enough to break a filibuster in the Senate. However, Trump and House Speaker Paul Ryan are opposed to it, which Alexander is trying to fix.
He said he and Murray could tell the president that “you don’t want chaos, neither do we. Sign it, take some credit for it, and give the American people a bipartisan win. I think they’ll like it.”
The Senate GOP leadership has not scheduled a vote on Alexander-Murray because of the opposition from Trump and the House. However, that appeared to change after a repeal of Obamacare’s individual mandate was inserted into the Senate’s tax reform bill.
Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, recently said that he could see Alexander-Murray being included in an end-of-the-year spending deal.
