If health law repeal fails, fix needed, McConnell says
Congress may have to bolster insurers, majority leader says.
A bill GLASGOW, KY. — focused on buttressing the nation’s insurance marketplaces will be needed if the full-fledged Republican effort to repeal much of President Barack Obama’s health care law fails, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Thursday.
It was one of his most explicit acknowledgments that his party’s top-priority drive to erase much of Obama’s landmark 2010 statutes might fall short.
The remarks by McConnell also implied that to show progress on health care, Republicans controlling the White House and Congress might have to negotiate with Democrats.
The existing bill would fail if just three of the 52 Republicans vote no, since all Democrats oppose it. McConnell was forced to cancel a planned vote on the measure last week after far more Republicans than that objected, and he has spent the Independence Day recess studying possible changes that might win over GOP dissidents.
“If my side is unable to agree on an adequate replacement, then some kind of action with regard to the private health insurance market must occur,” the Kentucky senator said at a Rotary Club lunch here.
“No action is not an alternative,” McConnell added. “We’ve got the insurance markets imploding all over the country, including in this state.”
In a written statement, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said it was encouraging that McConnell had “opened the door to bipartisan solutions.”
He said the focus should be on continuing federal payments to insurers that help them contain costs for some low-earning customers. Trump has threatened to end the payments.
Schumer has said repeatedly that Democrats won’t negotiate until Republicans abandon their repeal effort.
McConnell’s comments came during a recess that has produced no visible evidence he has winnowed the number of unhappy Republican senators. Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D., said this week he opposed the bill, bringing to at least a dozen the GOP senators who have publicly opposed or criticized the legislation.
Even as Republicans have struggled to write legislation they can pass, some have acknowledged that if they encountered problems, a smaller bill with quicker help for insurers and consumers might be needed.
They have said it could include provisions continuing the federal payments to insurers, which total around $7 billion annually, and some inducements to keep healthy people buying policies — a step that helps curb premiums.
Trump, McConnell, House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., and other Republicans have said Obama’s law is failing, citing markets around the country where insurers have pulled out or sharply boosted premiums. Some areas are down to a single insurer.
Democrats acknowledge Obama’s law needs changes that would help curb the growth of health care costs. But they say the GOP is exaggerating the problem and note that several insurers have attributed their decisions to stop selling policies in unprofitable areas, in part, to Trump administration indications that it may halt payments to insurers.