Senators to Trump: Don’t undercut ACA
President to decide this week on health subsidies, aides say
WASHINGTON — A pair of prominent lawmakers urged President Donald Trump on Sunday not to sabotage the Affordable Care Act in the wake of failed Republican efforts to scrap his predecessor’s signature legislative achievement.
But Trump urged GOP senators to try again to push through some version of repealing and replacing the law, even though Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said last week it was time to move on to other matters.
Trump senior adviser Kellyanne Conway said the president would decide in coming days whether to block subsidies that are a crucial component of the existing health care 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.”
The subsidies, totaling about $7 billion a year, help reduce deductibles and copayments for consumers with modest incomes.
The administration previously floated the idea to stop paying the subsidies that help insurers offset health care costs for lowincome Americans, called a cost-sharing reduction, or CSR. The next payment is due Aug. 21.
Ending the CSR subsidies, paid monthly to insurers, is one way that Trump could hasten Obamacare’s demise without legislation, by prompting more companies to raise premiums in the individual market or stop offering coverage.
Two of the lawmakers who blocked the Senate GOP repeal plan last week, however, criticized the administration’s continued efforts to overturn the law.
Sen. Susan Collins, RMaine, who rejected a series of GOP health care measures last week, blamed the administration for encouraging instability in the insurance markets by continuing the uncertainty over whether the subsidies 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.
She said Trump’s threat would not change her opposition to the GOP bill.
“I certainly hope the administration does not do anything in the meantime to hasten that collapse,” she added.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski, RAlaska, said further action on health care should be done in a bipartisan manner and not rushed.
“You cannot do major entitlement reform singlehandedly, and you wouldn’t do major legislative initiatives singlehandedly,” she said.
Sen. Bernie Sanders, IVt., echoed Collins’ criticism of Trump’s threat to stop making the cost-sharing payments.
“You know, I really think it’s incomprehensible that we have a president of the United States who wants to sabotage health care in America, make life more difficult for millions of people who are struggling now to get the health insurance they need and to pay for that health insurance,” he said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
Republicans hold a 52-48 majority in the Senate, where no Democrats voted for the GOP bill. GOP Sen. John McCain, who has since returned to Arizona for treatment for brain cancer, joined Collins and Murkowski in voting against the bill early Friday.
Prior to heading out for a day at his Virginia golf property, Trump tweeted that Republican senators should press ahead with efforts to scrap Obamacare — a day after he tauntingly exhorted them not to be “quitters” in the quest for legislative victory for him.
On Twitter Sunday, Trump said: Don’t give up Republican Senators, the World is watching: Repeal & Replace.”
The protracted health care fight has slowed Trump’s other policy goals, including a tax overhaul and infrastructure investment. But Trump aides made clear that the president still wanted to see action on health care.
The White House budget director, Mick Mulvaney, on CNN’s “State of the Union,” said it was official Trump administration policy that the Senate should keep working to repeal and replace the ACA, eschewing an August recess if necessary.
While the House has begun a five-week recess, the Senate is scheduled to work two more weeks before a summer break.
McConnell has said the unfinished business includes addressing a backlog of executive and judicial nominations, coming ahead of a busy agenda in September that involves passing a defense spending bill and raising the government’s borrowing limit.
“In the White House’s view, they can’t move on in the Senate,” Mulvaney said, referring to health legislation. “They need to stay, they need to work, they need to pass something.”