Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Wednesday that Republicans and Democrats would need to work together to address the problems with Obamacare, signaling an end, for now, to partisan GOP attempts to replace the law.
“We are going to have to try to address that on a bipartisan basis,” McConnell said.
Democrats have won a majority in the House of Representatives, but the Senate remains in Republican control, meaning that the parties will need to negotiate with each other in order to pass major legislation.
House leaders are attributing their victory to focusing on healthcare during the campaign. They seized on GOP actions in the courts and in Congress to undo the law, mostly highlighting the law’s rules on health insurers requiring them to cover sick patients at the same price as healthy patients.
McConnell accused Democrats of raising a “phony” argument by saying that Republicans were opposed to protecting people with pre-existing conditions. The bills Republicans introduced to overhaul Obamacare in 2016 and 2017 contained some of the same protections for sick people, but critics said they didn’t contain the same protections.
Still, certain customers have faced high premiums and been priced out of the market. McConnell didn’t say how the Senate would proceed on healthcare, but indicated the status quo couldn’t remain.
“There are serious problems with Obamacare, serious problems that need to get fixed,” he said.
[Related: Election night ushers in more Medicaid coverage for the poor via Obamacare]
Though Obamacare is considered safe in Congress, it still may be struck down by the courts. A case is pending in federal court that would throw out either the law as a whole or its requirement that insurers cover those with pre-existing illnesses. McConnell indicated the branches would come together if the court were to strike down Obamacare.
“I don’t think anyone wants to stick with the status quo… I think the message is figure out what you can do together and do it. I think healthcare is still a crisis and needs to be fixed,” he said.
Asked whether Republicans would consider working with the House on tackling high drug prices, McConnell said, “I can’t imagine that that won’t be on the agenda.”
