Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said “now is the time for creative thinking” when it comes to bringing down the cost of insurance under Obamacare — an apparent invitation for GOP lawmakers to bring their best ideas to the table now to help pass the major overhaul they promised to voters.
“Now is the time for creative thinking to increase access at a lower cost,” McConnell said on the Senate floor Monday. “Now is the time for a [Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services] administrator with the right experience as we repeal and replace Obamacare.”
The apparent open invitation to lawmakers to bring ideas to the table comes at a sensitive time for the House version of the Obamacare replacement bill. Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., has described it to GOP House lawmakers in take-it-or-leave it terms, saying it’s a “binary” choice — either this bill or no reform. McConnell, however, has stressed that senators will have a chance to amend the House measure when it comes to the Senate for floor consideration.
The Senate later Monday will vote on Seema Verma’s nomination to be CMS director, which is expected to pass with broad bipartisan support.
In the beginning of his Monday remarks, McConnell recalled that former President Clinton last year called the Affordable Care Act the “craziest thing in the world.”
“Over the weekend, former [HHS Secretary Kathleen] Sebelius said Clinton had a point,” McConnell said, noting that premiums across the country have spiked by 25 percent nationwide and more than 47 in Kentucky for individuals.
“Choices have fallen from coast to coast with about a third of counties nationwide and a third in Kentucky only having a single insurer to choose from on the exchange and healthcare markets are getting close to the edge of collapse,” he said.
The Obamacare “status quo is simply not an option,” he said.
