Senate Republicans received a list of options Tuesday on how to handle major healthcare sticking points such as Medicaid and pre-existing conditions as lawmakers edge toward drafting a bill to repeal and replace Obamacare.
The GOP conference was presented with a list of goals for healthcare reform and a slew of options on how to achieve them during a lunch meeting. The luncheon was the latest attempt by Senate leadership to speed up efforts to pass a healthcare bill by Congress’ August recess.
One of the options discussed was creating a new fund for stabilizing markets.
Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., said the fund would provide $15 billion a year for the first several years to help stabilize premiums on the individual market, which includes Obamacare’s exchanges and is used by people who don’t have insurance through work.
“Until you rescue the markets there is going to be nothing to rescue,” he said.
The $15 billion-a-year figure is slightly more than the stability fund that would be created by the American Health Care Act, the Obamacare replacement that passed the House last month. That fund would give states $115 billion over 10 years, which comes out to about $11 billion a year.
But there isn’t a consensus on what to do about Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion, one of the biggest sticking points in the chamber.
“We are still working on it. One of our goals is to get reforms that work,” said Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D.
Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., said the Senate is discussing keeping the expansion in place longer than the 2020 deadline in the House legislation.
“What the House passed has this abrupt cutoff and we are talking about a glide path to allow a number of years to progress,” Barrasso said.
But he didn’t say how many years that glide path would last.
Hoeven was skeptical about setting a deadline for a vote, saying he was gun shy after watching the House set a deadline for its legislation and not meet it.
“I think we are gonna be careful about setting a hard date because we want to get to a consensus and get something that we can pass,” he said.
Other senators said they hope to hold a vote before the week-long break for the Fourth of July holiday.
“We established goals and established that we need to do this before the Fourth of July break,” said Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan. “At this meeting there is more agreement than we have seen before.”
However, Roberts dodged on whether the Senate could definitely vote in a few weeks.
“Maybe in a week or two we could get a [Congressional Budget Office] score and see if we can move,” he said. “If we can make enough progress as we did today, I am very encouraged.”
Washington Examiner Reporter Susan Ferrechio contributed to this report.
