US health payment row defused, spending law on track

WASHINGTON: The White House and congressional Democrats have defused a tense standoff over payments for the working poor under the healthcare law, keeping a huge government spending Bill on track days ahead of a shutdown deadline.

President Donald Trump on Wednesday backed away from a threat to immediately withhold payments to help people with modest incomes with out-of-pocket medical expenses under Democrat Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act.

The dispute with Democrats threatened to hold up the US$1 trillion (RM4.3 trillion) spending Bill.

A temporary funding Bill expires tonight at midnight, and GOP leaders late Wednesday unveiled another short-term spending Bill to prevent a government shutdown this weekend.

The weeks-long sniping over the healthcare issue had snagged the talks, which had progressed steadily for weeks and gained momentum after Trump dropped demands for immediate money for building his long-promised border wall.

“Our major concerns in these negotiations have been about funding for the wall and uncertainty about the ... payments crucial to the stability of the marketplaces under the Affordable Care Act,” Pelosi said.

“We have now made progress on both of these fronts.”

Partisan disagreements over the environment, abortion and GOP efforts to reverse Obama-era financial regulations continue to dog the negotiations, but both the administration and many congressional Democrats were hopeful about sealing an agreement relatively soon.

The massive spending measure, which would wrap together 11 unfinished spending Bills into a single omnibus Bill, represents the first real bipartisan legislation of Trump’s presidency.

Democratic votes are needed to pass the measure over tea party opposition in the House and provide enough support to clear a filibuster hurdle in the Senate, which has led negotiators to strip away controversial policy riders and ignore an US$18bil (RM78bil) roster of unpopular spending cuts.

The irony is that even though Republicans have voted numerous times to gut Obamacare, many are opposed to cutting off the cost-sharing payments right away, which could cause the Affordable Care Act’s insurance marketplaces to abruptly collapse.

At issue is the US$175bil (RM761bil) the government is paying to reimburse health insurers for over a decade to reduce deductibles and co-payments for lower-income people.

In a lawsuit, the House argued that Congress never specifically appropriated that money, and a federal judge agreed that the administration exceeded its constitutional authority by spending it anyway.

The Obama administration appealed, but after Trump won the election last year the case was put on hold. — AP