Lindsey Graham has a reported backup plan if the new health care bill in the Senate fails, but trust me, you’re not going to like it:
NY POST – Led by Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), a group of senators began working on a fallback plan this week that would sustain Obamacare’s insurance market if the Republicans fail to repeal and replace the 2010 health care law before recessing in mid-August.
Graham has billed his plan as a bipartisan “alternative” to the repeal-and-replace bill being pushed by Senate GOP leaders – an amendment that would stabilize Obamacare’s exchanges and protect Americans from sticker shock as insurers face a smaller, sicker pool of customers.
The South Carolina Republican, who has consulted several Democratic colleagues and governors, is expected to release details of his plan this week. Bloomberg News said the amendment would allow states to use their share of a reinsurance fund to subsidize the cost of chronically-ill Obamacare enrollees and authorize cost-sharing payments for insurers.
“We don’t agree with Obamacare, but recognize the fact that these markets are collapsing; insurance companies need it to provide the certainty of how they’re going to price the 2018 premiums,” said Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, a Republican opposed an earlier version of the Senate GOP health care bill on the grounds that it failed to “loosen up [Obamacare’s] regulations and mandates.”
Graham is said to be working with key Republican holdouts, including Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, and Democrats like Florida Sen. Bill Nelson, who has bemoaned the GOP’s effort to go it alone on health care reform.
So it sounds like this is just a bill to try and fix Obamacare instead of repealing and replacing it.
If this backup bill is what ends up on Trump’s desk via a bipartisan effort, then it wouldn’t surprise me if the Democrats win back the House and the Senate in 2018.