Senate Democrats on Tuesday blasted House and Senate lawmakers’ new proposal for an Obamacare stabilization deal as unworkable.
The criticism further darkens the prospects for passage of a bipartisan deal to stabilize Obamacare’s exchanges on the individual market. President Trump and House Speaker Paul Ryan oppose another deal that has generated unanimous Senate Democratic support.
“More partisanship isn’t going to solve this problem,” said Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., in response to the more conservative proposal released Tuesday.
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, and House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady, R-Texas, announced a new deal Tuesday that would negate one drawn up by Sens. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., and Patty Murray, D-Wash.
The deal would ensure cost-sharing reduction payments to Obamacare insurers for two years and in return would delay enforcement of the individual and employer mandates. It also would expand health savings accounts. The deal is similar to a “skinny” repeal bill that failed in the Senate in late July.
Murray slammed the deal as more of the same from Republicans.
“That’s a repeat performance of what the Senate and the people of this country already rejected,” she told the Washington Examiner. “Lamar and I have been working with everyone. We have great bipartisan support.”
Murray and Alexander released a deal last week that would make the payments for two years in return for more flexibility for states to waive Obamacare regulations.
The bill has 24 co-sponsors, divided evenly between Democrats and Republicans. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer has said that all Democarts would support the deal, meaning that it would have the 60 votes needed to break a filibuster.
But Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said last weekend he would bring up the bill for a vote only if Trump supported it.
Trump encouraged Alexander to work with Murray and even praised Alexander’s efforts during a closed-door luncheon with GOP senators Tuesday. But Trump also has described the payments to insurers as “bailouts.”
The payments are to reimburse insurers for lowering out-of-pocket costs for low-income people on Obamacare’s exchanges. Without the payments, insurers are expected to raise premiums at least 20 percent on average to recoup the costs.
It appears highly unlikely that the new deal from Hatch and Brady will gain any support from Senate Democrats who unanimously opposed the “skinny” repeal bill that featured many of the same elements.
