Getting Insurance Subsidy Bill Passed Will Be Herculean Task, But ‘Stranger Things Have Happened’
Senate HELP Chairman Lamar Alexander and ranking Democrat Patty Murray have a history of shepherding through seemingly impossible bipartisan bills, but the odds are against them when it comes to the first attempt at fixing the Affordable Care Act since repeal efforts failed.
Politico:
New Bipartisan Obamacare Push Faces Steep Climb
There’s never been a major bipartisan Obamacare bill, and the path to passing one now — after the death of Senate Republicans' repeal effort — is steep. Senate HELP Chairman Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) and ranking Democrat Patty Murray of Washington are up against both time and history in their race to stabilize the shaky Obamacare markets and solidify their status as the chamber’s top dealmakers. (Haberkorn and Cancryn, 8/3)
The Associated Press:
Bipartisan Drive To Pay Health Insurers Faces Senate Hurdles
A bipartisan Senate effort to continue federal payments to insurers and avert a costly rattling of health insurance markets faces a dicey future. The uncertainty shows that last week's wreck of the Republican drive to repeal the Affordable Care Act hasn't blunted the issue's sharp-edged politics. (Fram, 8/2)
Reuters:
U.S. Governors Urge Trump To Make Insurance Payments
Democratic and Republican U.S. governors on Wednesday urged the Trump administration, as well as Congress, to continue funding payments to health insurance companies that make Obamacare plans affordable, calling it critical to stabilizing the insurance marketplace. (Cornwell, 8/2)
The Wall Street Journal:
Health Insurer Payments In Crosshairs
The health industry is heading into a pivotal few weeks that will determine whether the White House keeps making billions in payments to insurers or whether Congress will take over responsibility for them—decisions that rest on complex political calculations. President Donald Trump regularly decries the “cost-sharing reduction” payments as insurer bailouts, but he has so far kept making them. Republicans in Congress sued President Barack Obama to end them, but many now hope Mr. Trump will continue them. And congressional Democrats, who openly favor the payments, failed to lock them in when they could. (Radnofsky and Hackman, 8/2)
The New York Times:
The Passion Of A Congressional Health Care Battle
One of the remarkable features of covering the congressional battle over health care this year has been the way reporters pieced together a picture of what was happening from snippets of information extracted from members of Congress dashing through the Capitol. At times, I felt as if I were in a time machine — reliving, in reverse, my previous reporting for The New York Times on the laborious legislative process that produced the Affordable Care Act in 2009 and 2010. Reporters roamed the halls like hunters and sprang into action with voice recorders in hand when a senator emerged from the Senate chamber, an elevator or a subway car, or an unmarked hideaway office. (Pear, 8/2)