WASHINGTON — A bipartisan plan to shore up Obamacare markets that President Trump expressed support for just days ago stalled suddenly yesterday when he reversed course and slammed the measure as a bailout for insurance companies.
The roadblock for the measure sponsored by Sens. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) and Patty Murray (D-Wash.), which would include subsides to insurers to lower deductibles and co-payments for about 6 million customers, came one day after Trump touted the White House’s role in crafting what he called a “short-term fix.”
But yesterday he expressed a different view, joining House Speaker Paul Ryan in opposing the measure that supporters say would stave off premium hikes and help keep insurers in the market as Obamacare enrollment is set to begin Nov. 1.
“I am supportive of Lamar as a person & also of the process, but I can never support bailing out ins co’s who have made a fortune w/ O’Care,” Trump tweeted yesterday.
Later at the White House Trump told reporters, “If something can happen, that’s fine. But I won’t do anything to enrich the insurance companies because right now the insurance companies are being enriched. They’ve been enriched by Obamacare like nothing anybody has ever seen before.”
White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders told reporters that Trump “wants to lower premiums, he wants to provide greater flexibility, he wants to drive competition, he likes the idea of block grants to states.”
“We need something to go a little bit further to get on board,” Sanders said.
The Congressional Budget Office projected that without the insurance subsidies, premiums would rise by 20 percent on average.
Alexander and Murray said yesterday that they plan to push ahead with the effort despite opposition by Trump, Ryan and other GOP lawmakers who vow not to back any measure that does not repeal and replace Obamacare.
Alexander said he spoke to Trump yesterday and he would try to bring the president back on board.
“The president called again today, and I appreciate his leadership on health care. He and I absolutely agree that CSRs (cost-sharing reductions) should benefit consumers and not insurance companies,” Alexander tweeted.
“The Alexander-Murray agreement has strong language to do that, and I will work with the president to see if we can make it even stronger.”
Other lawmakers were less optimistic.
“I think right now it’s stalled out,” Sen. John Thune (R-N.D.) told reporters.
Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey and 18 other state attorneys general yesterday asked a federal court in California to issue an emergency order forcing the White House to make the insurer subsidy payments that Trump halted by executive order last week. The payments had originally been scheduled to be made tomorrow.
