Bipartisan Coalition Of Experts Proposes Blueprint To Shore Up Fragile Marketplaces
The group, composed of prominent advisers to former Republican and Democratic presidents, began holding monthly meetings in January to search for points of agreement. Meanwhile, a study finds that the uncertainty from the Trump administration has triggered premium hikes and community organizations that help people enroll in health care through the Affordable Care Act are on edge about their funding.
The Washington Post:
Bipartisan Health Policy Coalition Urges Congress To Strengthen The ACA
An unlikely coalition of liberal and conservative health-policy leaders is calling on Congress to strengthen the existing health-care law in a variety of ways to help Americans get and keep insurance. The group is urging the government, in particular, to continuing paying all the federal subsidies provided under the Affordable Care Act and to help Americans enroll in coverage. In a five-point set of principles issued Wednesday, the coalition lays out a potential bipartisan path forward after a Republican strategy to tilt federal health policies in more conservative directions failed in the Senate last month. (Goldstein, 8/9)
The Wall Street Journal:
Health Experts Push Fix For Insurance Markets Aimed At Both Parties
The plan makes five primary recommendations. It encourages lawmakers to formally authorize the ACA’s “cost-sharing reduction” payments, which help insurers subsidize costs for some low-income consumers. It recommends Congress ensure funding for the popular Children’s Health Insurance Program, which is favored by members of both parties but has been floated as a vehicle to pass more contentious health reforms. The authors also endorse two GOP-backed ideas—expanding the use of health savings accounts and broadening the ACA’s state innovation waivers, to give states additional flexibility in administering their insurance markets. In exchange, they nod to a core priority for Democrats to have a mechanism that will entice more people to sign up for health insurance. (Hackman, 8/9)
The Associated Press:
Study: Trump Actions Trigger Health Premium Hikes For 2018
The Trump administration's own actions are triggering double-digit premium increases on individual health insurance policies purchased by many consumers, a nonpartisan study has found. The analysis released Thursday by the Kaiser Family Foundation found that mixed signals from President Donald Trump have created uncertainty "far outside the norm," leading insurers to seek higher premium increases for 2018 than would otherwise have been the case. (8/10)
The Wall Street Journal:
Health ‘Navigators’ Brace For Decision On Their Funding
The Trump administration must decide within weeks whether to continue funding organizations that help people enroll in health insurance through the Affordable Care Act, one of several imminent choices that could signal the administration’s larger approach to the law. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services last year awarded $63 million in grants to nearly 100 community organizations that help people sign up for health plans under the 2010 law. The grants for these so-called “navigators” are set to run through September 2018, but the contracts specify that funding year-to-year would be contingent on their performance. (Hackman, 8/9)
The Associated Press:
Trump Hits McConnell For Senate Crash Of Obama Health Repeal
President Donald Trump scolded his own party's Senate leader on Wednesday for the crash of the Republican drive to repeal and rewrite the Obama health care law, using Twitter to demand of Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, "Why not done?" Trump fired back at the Kentucky Republican for telling a home-state audience this week that the president had "not been in this line of work before, and I think had excessive expectations about how quickly things happen in the democratic process." (8/9)
Politico:
Trump Vs. McConnell
The tit-for-tat between Donald Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell over the chamber's failure to repeal Obamacare opens a politically perilous schism within a party already riven by tensions over its lack of accomplishments this year. (McCaskill and Schor, 8/9)
Los Angeles Times:
Trump Administration Shifts Tone On Obamacare, Signals Openness To Bipartisan 'Fix'
The Trump administration, thwarted in several attempts to repeal the Affordable Care Act, notably shifted tone Wednesday, opening the door for a bipartisan plan to "fix" the law. ... "Both folks in the House and the Senate, on both sides of the aisle frankly, have said that Obamacare doesn't work, and it needs to be either repealed or fixed," Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price said on the Fox News program “Fox & Friends.” "So the onus is on Congress," he said.Talk of fixing the law is new for most Republicans. Price and President Trump have long focused only on repealing or replacing it. (Bierman, 8/9)