Senate Democrats on Tuesday urged Republicans to drop a provision in their tax bill that would repeal Obamacare’s individual mandate penalties, though they stopped short of saying they would otherwise rescind their support for a bipartisan healthcare bill.
“Our bill was designed to help solve the problems that already exist … it will not do a thing to give coverage back to the 13 million people who will lose it,” Sen. Patty Murray, the top Democrat on the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, said about the bill she negotiated with Republican committee Chairman Lamar Alexander, known as Alexander-Murray.
Democrats have warned that the Obamacare provision would damage the healthcare exchanges, but Republicans say that the impact is overstated. Appearing with Murray was Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colo., who said the repeal of the individual mandate would create “less security, less affordability and less predictability” for Obamacare customers, and Sen. Maggie Hassan, D-N.H., who said the actions by the Trump administration, such as ending payments to insurers, already have raised premiums.
Republicans have included the repeal of Obamacare’s individual mandate penalties in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which would mean that if passed Americans would no longer be fined by the government if they do not have health insurance coverage. The tax bill has a hearing scheduled for Tuesday, and President Trump is planning to visit Republicans during their lunch to urge them to pass it. A Congressional Budget Office report projected that the number of people who are uninsured would rise by 13 million if the provision is repealed, though the agency will be re-evaluating its methodology. A projection by Standard & Poor’s pegged the number at less than 5 million.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer has said that Democrats would block the passage of Alexander-Murray if the tax bill keeps the Obamacare provision, but other Democrats have sidestepped questions about whether that is their intention. The Alexander-Murray bill includes several provisions aimed at reducing premiums for Obamacare’s unsubsidized customers, such as funding insurer payments for two years and allowing states more flexibility in how they implement Obamacare.
Murray would say only that she believed it was up to Republicans to take the individual mandate provision out of their tax bill.
“The bill we designed has not been written to block the problems they’re creating,” she said.
Democrats have not decided whether to add amendments to the bill that would remove the Obamacare provision should the bill reach that stage, Murray said.
