Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., said that a small and narrow package to stabilize Obamacare’s markets is the best way to end a stalemate between Republicans and Democrats over healthcare that has endured since Obamacare’s passage.
But the length of a stabilization package has already emerged as a major sticking point to the Senate’s nascent efforts at bipartisanship.
Alexander — chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee — is working with ranking member Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., on a stabilization package for Obamacare’s exchanges for 2018.
Alexander said that the package is likely to be narrow, hinting on Tuesday that it could just include giving states more flexibility to get federal waivers for changes to their healthcare market and providing funding for cost-sharing subsidies to insurers for 2018.
“We will see if we can come up with a limited bipartisan package, maybe just two things that have some effect in 2018,” Alexander said.
Alexander said that he is in favor of funding the cost-sharing subsidies, which pay insurers for lowering out-of-pocket costs for low-income Obamacare customers, for just 2018.
However, he didn’t say if he would be in favor of funding them beyond 2018.
Murray said in an editorial in the Washington Post that she wants a “multi-year solution to offer certainty to patients and families and to truly help prevent premium increases.”
She also wanted to go much further than Alexander’s two items. She called for adding a public option that provides government-run health plans on Obamacare’s exchanges and funding for reinsurance, which gives payments to Obamacare insurers with the sickest enrollees.
If the Senate can reach agreement, then Alexander hopes to get something passed out of the upper chamber by the end of the month and added he hasn’t talked with anybody in the House. Senate HELP is holding a series of hearings starting Wednesday on the individual market and how to stabilize it.
“Whatever we do has to be passed by the House, but the House is likely to say we have already passed the healthcare bill lets see what the Senate can do,” he said, referring to the Obamacare repeal and replace bill that was passed in May.
A similar effort to repeal and replace Obamacare narrowly failed in the Senate in July.
