While Republicans aim to move next month on repealing Obamacare by a simple majority vote in the Senate, a top senator said that at some point they are going to need Democratic help.
“We may have to start with a bill that only has Republican votes, but we can’t end that way,” Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., said Friday.
Alexander is chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, which is one of four panels working on legislation to repeal and replace Obamacare.
House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., said Thursday that repeal legislation likely would be ready for a vote by early March.
The goal is to use reconciliation to approve a repeal measure with some replacement provisions. Reconciliation allows a bill to be approved via a simple 51-vote majority instead of the 60 needed to stop a filibuster, but all measures must concern the budget and spending.
Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., told reporters Friday that Republicans are working with the Senate parliamentarian over their recess next week.
The goal is to “find out the most we can do under reconciliation,” he said.
The parliamentarian, who advises the Senate and interprets the chamber’s rules, must approve whether a bill can be approved to use reconciliation.
A 2015 reconciliation bill approved by Congress but vetoed by former President Barack Obama gutted the law’s taxes and mandates but left the insurance regulations.
While Alexander conceded that he is working to produce a bill that will get 51 votes in the Senate, he said Democrats should be open to working with Republicans to fix the individual market. The market is for people who don’t get insurance through their job and includes Obamacare’s exchanges.
“You would think Democrats who constructed Obamacare would want to join us on a rescue team to stabilize the individual market,” he said.
The exchanges have been slammed by insurer defections this year, with major insurers Aetna and UnitedHealth pulling out of a majority of the markets it offers plans in. Earlier this week, Humana said it would fully pull out of the 11 states it offers Obamacare plans in next year due to financial losses.
Molina, a small insurer that was a big supporter of Obamacare, said that its profits tumbled for 2016 due to the marketplaces. Its CEO said this week he doesn’t know if it will commit to the marketplaces for 2018.
Democrats have blasted Republicans over trying to repeal Obamacare without an immediate replacement. They have stressed they are ready to work with Republicans to fix the law, not completely repeal it.
Alexander bemoaned that he hasn’t seen bipartisan cooperation on Obamacare so far.
“My goal is there won’t be any lasting, final solution until we have a bipartisan solution,” he said.
