The Senate is rehashing an old GOP idea during the Affordable Care Act stabilization talks
While some Democrats pivot to single payer legislation this week, the immediate health policy agenda item is shoring up the 2018 Affordable Care Act (ACA) individual marketplace in time for September 27, the final deadline for insurers to decide if they’ll participate or not. The Senate’s Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) committee is resuming hearings Tuesday on how best to stabilize the marketplace this week, and one theme continues to dominate bipartisan negotiations: state flexibility.
Governors and state insurance commissioners testifying before the Senate HELP committee unanimously asked lawmakers to pay insurers for subsidies provided to low-income people, a more widely accepted request, and provide states more flexibility, a plea that’s not so clear-cut. If conservatives agree to include these cost sharing payments in the ACA stabilization bill, which is expected to be finalized by September 22, they need to get something in return.
“It’s pretty easy to be for extending cost sharing reduction payments. I mean, that’s just more money and we can argue about for how long it should be and that’s one thing,” said HELP committee chairman Lamar Alexander (R-TN). “We will have no chance of getting that unless we have, in addition to that, some restructuring of the market.”
https://thinkprogress.org/the-senate-is-rehashing-an-old-gop-idea-during-the-affordable-care-act-stabilization-talks-606ee57a394e/
The solution is MEDICARE for ALL and stop this BS or have a PUBLIC OPTION
