Gov. Paul LePage of Maine said Friday the healthcare bill backed by Republicans would allow Maine to re-implement a type of high-risk pool that the state had before Obamacare.
“The high-risk pool was really helping lower premiums, lower the deductibles on people in Maine,” said LePage, appearing with Vice President Mike Pence at the White House. “And unfortunately what Obamacare did is it robbed nursing homes and homecare services, and we need to go back. We’ve made those reforms.” The pools are special programs that states establish to provide a safety net for people who can’t get health insurance.
LePage is one of 15 Republican governors who support the passage of the Obamacare overhaul bill known as Graham-Cassidy, named after its sponsors GOP Sens. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Bill Cassidy of Louisiana. Republican Sens. Dean Heller of Nevada and Ron Johnson of Wisconsin also sponsored the bill.
The legislation would funnel revenue from Obamacare to states in the form of block grants and repeal the individual and employer mandates. Maine Republican Sen. Susan Collins is a key swing lawmaker who helped cast a deciding vote against a bill in July that would have narrowly repealed Obamacare, known as “skinny repeal.” Collins for months has urged lawmakers to work in a bipartisan way to repair Obamacare and has said that she is leaning against voting for Graham-Cassidy.
The Maine program that LePage said he would want to bring back was called Public Law 90 and known as “invisible risk-sharing.” It allowed medical expenses of especially high-cost customers to be paid for without their knowing about it, with insurers responsible for a set amount of claims before the assistance kicked in.
“It did not affect people’s premiums because we did it in a very innovative way, is what we call it ‘behind the curtain,'” LePage said. “People didn’t even know it. All we need to know if you had a pre-existing condition, the state took care of it.”
Pence touted the healthcare bill, saying it would allow states flexibility to implement healthcare systems that work for them. He pointed to planned increases in premiums for 2018 and the number of people who paid the penalty for being uninsured in Maine as evidence that the law needed to be overhauled.
“With all due respect to competing opinions out there, the American people know we can do better than Obamacare,” he said.
Republicans are aiming to pass the bill in the Senate through reconciliation, which requires 50 votes, assuming a tie-breaking vote by Pence, instead of the 60 typically needed to break a filibuster. Because they have a two-seat majority and all Democrats are expected to vote against the bill, Republicans can lose no more than two votes. Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., has said he will oppose the measure because it keeps too much of Obamacare in place.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said he intends to bring the Graham-Cassidy bill up for a vote next week, ahead of a Sept. 30 deadline to use reconciliation.
At the White House event, LePage also addressed questions on Obamacare. In November, Maine voters are facing a ballot referendum on whether to expand Medicaid to low-income people through an Obamacare provision. LePage, who has vetoed such measures passed by Maine’s state legislature six times, warned when asked about it Friday that the funds wouldn’t adequately reimburse hospitals. He noted that when he began his term, the state had a budget deficit and payments it owed to hospitals.
“And how we fixed it, is we brought our liquor business back into the state of Maine, because it was leased by a previous governor,” said LePage, whose term expires in 2018. “And now we’re using that to help pay for the bonds we had to borrow to pay off the last billion dollars, $750 million of unpaid hospital bills.
“Now the only option from now on would be to double up on your drinking, and I don’t want that for Maine people.”
