Stalled bills to stabilize Obamacare may be revived as part of spending package

WASHINGTON – A bipartisan group of senators will try again next month to jump-start a pair of stalled bills to stabilize Obamacare health insurance markets and help provide coverage for people with high medical costs.

Lawmakers are still negotiating revisions to the proposals but hope to attach both to an massive spending package that Congress is expected to take up at the end of March.

The federal government is still operating on a short-term spending bill through March 23; Congress needs to pass legislation by then to fund the government for the rest of the year and avoid another government shutdown.

“What we’re trying to do is to lower health insurance rates by 10 to 20 percent, especially for Americans who don’t get insurance from the government or from their employer and pay the full cost of insurance on their own,” said Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., chairman of the Senate Health Education Labor and Pensions Committee.

Alexander and the committee’s top Democrat, Sen. Patty Murray of Washington, struck a deal last fall to restore for two years the government subsidies paid to insurers that provide health-care coverage to low-income clients. President Trump has halted the payments, established under the Affordable Care Act, which are worth around $7 billion each year.

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The other proposal, advocated by Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, would create high-risk insurance pools to provide coverage for people with high medical costs. Collins said last year that she voted for the Republican tax cut bill only after Majority leader Mitch McConnell promised to allow a Senate vote on her health care measure.

Both bills are viewed as short-term fixes that could bring some stability to the volatile health insurance markets created under the Affordable Care Act and help offset the higher insurance premiums expected to result from the repeal of the Obamacare requirement that most Americans buy insurance.

Americans who don’t buy insurance faced a tax penalty under the so-called “individual mandate.” But the penalty was repealed as part of the Republican tax-reform bill that passed in December.

Collins continues to have “productive discussions” with her colleagues and with House and Senate leaders about including both her bill and the Alexander-Murray proposal in the omnibus spending package in March, said her spokeswoman, Annie Clark.

Supporters pushed in December to get the bill included in a short-term spending bill but abandoned that approach after it ran into resistance from hardline conservatives in the House, who balked at approving what they consider a giveaway to insurance companies.

Alexander and Collins said at the time they intended to bring the proposals back early this year.

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Meanwhile, Senate Democrats have been pushing for revisions to the legislation.

They want to add more money for the health insurance subsidies, restore funding that Trump cut from programs promoting health care enrollment under Obamacare, and include provisions barring the Trump administration from selling short-term insurance plans.

Earlier this week, the Department of Health and Human Services proposed that people be allowed to buy cheaper, short-term plans that don't offer all of the coverage benefits required under Obamacare.

The department said the change would help people who have been struggling with high premiums of plans many see as overly generous. Some women who are no longer of child bearing age, for example, say they shouldn't have to buy insurance that covers birth control and maternity care.

But critics warn that short-term insurance policies, or “junk plans,” also come with downsides. Insurers could deny coverage based on pre-existing conditions, generally cover few benefits and cap the value of the benefits provided.

Murray warned that such plans will help insurance companies skirt the Obamacare minimum standards, boosting their profits while, at the same time, raising costs for many patients and leaving others with policies that don’t protect them when they need coverage most.

“The deal Chairman Alexander and I reached months ago simply isn’t designed to address damage done to patients’ health care by the Republican tax bill or the junk plans President Trump is allowing insurers to put on the market—and that means we now need to do more to protect families from paying the price for Republican health care sabotage,” Murray said.

Murray said she and Alexander continue to discuss possible revisions to their bill.

“I’m hopeful we’ll be able to take the additional steps on affordability needed to uphold our original goals of stabilizing markets and bringing down families’ costs,” Murray said.

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