Alexander looking for ways to stabilize insurance market
WASHINGTON — With the GOP’s plan to repeal Obamacare near collapse, the Republican chairman of the Senate health committee announced Tuesday he will convene hearings to look for ways to stabilize the individual insurance market.
Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., said the hearings are needed to help millions of Americans who will be unable to buy insurance unless Congress acts.
“My main concern is doing all I can to help the 350,000 Tennesseans and 18 million Americans in the individual market who may literally have no options to purchase health insurance in 2018 and 2019,” said Alexander, chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., indicated he plans to hold a vote on a bill to repeal the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, without replacing it, even though he lacks the votes to pass the legislation.
However that vote turns out, “the Senate health committee has a responsibility during the next few weeks to hold hearings to continue exploring how to stabilize the individual market,” Alexander said. “I will consult with Senate leadership and then I will set those hearings after the Senate votes on the health care bill.”
Gov. Bill Haslam said Tuesday even after years of Republicans vowing to repeal the Affordable Care Act, he wasn’t surprised at the inability of Congress to get something done.
“I said all along I didn’t think they’d be able to pass something. The reality is, once you have an entitlement in place it’s really hard to take it off,” Haslam said at a news conference inside the Tennessee State Capitol. “Once you give people something, to say we’re going to take something away is really, really hard. That’s just a political reality.”
Haslam said he hopes lawmakers go back to the drawing board. He said McConnell and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., should be able to agree that health care costs need to be contained in a way that “they’re not being now.”
“Because,” Haslam said, “this is not sustainable.”
Alexander’s decision to call for hearings came just hours after three Republicans — Sens. Susan Collins of Maine, Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska — said they would not support a GOP plan to repeal Obamacare without a replacement.
Their defections appeared to doom the GOP plan, leaving McConnell short of the 50 votes he needed to pass the bill.
McConnell proposed the idea late Monday when it became clear that he did not have enough GOP votes to pass the latest Senate version of a replacement bill for Obamacare.
The GOP bill was pieced together behind close doors by a small group of Republican senators, without any input from Democrats and no public hearings.
Rep. Jim Cooper, D-Nashville, applauded the collapse of the GOP bill.
“Senate Republicans wisely listened to Americans and stopped this latest cruel health care bill,” he said. “Americans said they would lose coverage, and health industry experts said the bill would destroy the insurance market for everybody.
“It’s time to work together. Obamacare is more popular than ever. It’s not working well in states that refused to expand Medicaid, such as Tennessee. But the law can be improved if Republicans join with us and stop trying to repeal a law that is largely working.”
Reporter Dave Boucher contributed to this report.
Contact Michael Collins at 703-854-8927, at mcollins2@gannett.com or follow him on Twitter at @mcollins NEWS.