Trump to decide soon whether to scrap health-care subsidies, aide says

WASHINGTON— Two prominent lawmakers urged U.S. President Donald Trump Sunday not to sabotage the Affordable Care Act after failed Republican efforts to scrap the health care law.

But Trump urged Republican senators to try again to push through some version of repealing and replacing the law, even though Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said last week it was time to move on to other matters.

Kellyanne Conway, a Trump adviser, said the president would decide in coming days whether to block sub- sidies that are a crucial component of the law. “He’s going to make that decision this week, and that’s a decision that only he can make,” Conway said on Fox News Sunday.

Two of the lawmakers who blocked the Senate Republican repeal plan last week, however, criticized the administration’s continued efforts to overturn the law.

Republican Sen. Susan Collins blamed the Trump administration for encouraging instability in the insurance markets by continuing the uncertainty over whether the subsidies — cost-sharing payments that reduce out-of-pocket health-care costs for poorer Americans — would continue. “I’m troubled by the uncertainty that has been created by the administration,” Collins said on NBC’s Meet the Press. She contested Trump’s characterization of the payments as an “insurance company bailout.”

“That’s not what it is,” she said, calling the reduction payments “vital assistance” to low-income Americans.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska said further action on health care should be done in a bipartisan manner and not rushed. “You cannot do major entitlement reform single-handedly, and you wouldn’t do major legislative initiatives single-handedly,” she said.