Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said stabilizing the Obamacare insurance markets is a top priority for the GOP as it works to rewrite Obamacare, signaling the party backs subsidies for insurance companies that President Trump has threatened to withhold.
McConnell, R-Ky., named five priorities the GOP will include in a Senate healthcare reform bill they are struggling to write, and taking action to stabilize the dwindling marketplaces topped the list.
He described the healthcare marketplaces as “collapsing.”
Republicans have opposed federal payments to health insurance companies that have helped lower premiums, but they also recognize that eliminating them would send the marketplaces into further chaos. States are already dealing with the shrinking availability of insurance companies, and some counties will be left with no health insurance options in the coming months.
McConnell said that in addition to stabilizing the insurance markets, the GOP healthcare legislation seeks to “free Americans from the Obamacare mandates which forced them to buy insurance that they don’t want.”
Republicans are also seeking to lower premiums for health insurance, McConnell said, and to “strengthen Medicaid for those who need it most,” as well as preserve access to care for people with pre-existing conditions, who are currently protected under Obamacare.
Republicans are grappling with a way to wind down the Obamacare expansion of Medicaid and have proposed phasing it out after as many as seven years.
McConnell did not signal when Republicans will take up a healthcare bill, but said lawmakers “will continue working” because Obamacare is collapsing.
“The American people deserve relief, and we’ll keep working to provide it,” McConnell said.
