Expired Obamacare subsidy deal inches toward Senate floor vote amid bipartisan talks
A bipartisan group of senators is still working on a fix for the now-expired Obamacare subsidies and believe that they may be nearing a proposal that could hit the Senate floor.
The confab, which met a handful of times during Congress’ holiday break, adjourned once more behind closed doors on Monday night. Sens. Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Bernie Moreno, R-Ohio, are leading the talks among several Senate Republicans and Democrats looking for a compromise solution.
Most who attended the meeting were tight-lipped on specifics of the still-simmering proposal, but Collins noted the plan was similar to the initial offering from her and Moreno.
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"Parts of the bill are similar to what Senator Moreno and I proposed originally, with a two-year extension, with some reforms in the first year and then more substantial reforms in the second year," she said.
Their original plan — one of several floating around in the upper chamber — would have extended the subsidies by two years, put an income cap onto the credits for households making up to $200,000 and eliminated zero-cost premiums as a fraud preventive measure by requiring a $25 minimum monthly payment.
Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., one of the lawmakers who has routinely attended the meetings, said the talks were going well.
"We had a really good discussion last night," Kaine said. "I don't want to characterize it other than we had a really good discussion."
And Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said that he had gotten an update on negotiations from Moreno Tuesday morning and believed that the bipartisan huddles had been productive.
Still, any plan that hits the floor has to hit several benchmarks for Republicans, including antifraud guardrails, a transition into health savings accounts (HSAs) and more stringent anti-abortion language.
"The keys are reforms, obviously, and then how do you navigate [the Hyde Amendment]," Thune said. "I think that's probably the most challenging part of this. But again, I think there's potentially a path forward, but it's something that has to get a big vote, certainly a big vote."
The Hyde Amendment issue is a barrier for both sides of the aisle, given that Senate Republicans demand that changes be made to the subsidies, and more broadly Obamacare, to prevent any taxpayer dollars from funding abortions.
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That debate received a wrinkle Tuesday when President Donald Trump told House Republicans "you have to be a little flexible" when it comes to the Hyde Amendment.
That triggered mixed reactions from Republicans in the upper chamber.
Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., said that he had "no idea the context" of Trump’s remarks but affirmed that he was ardently against funding abortions.
"I’m saying I'm not flexible in the value of human life," Lankford said. "Life is valuable. I don't believe some children are disposable, and some children are valuable. I think all children are valuable."
Senate Democrats largely viewed Trump's comments as a sign of progress — that maybe Republicans would budge on the Hyde issue. But flexibility goes both ways, and Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and top-ranking Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, wasn't ready to budge on the matter.
"I am not going to open the door to Hyde, given what happens and what has been seen historically when you do that," he said. "If you open the door, it will get drafty in a hurry, and I'm not going to let it happen."
Moreno signaled that Republicans might have to make a compromise on the issue if they wanted to move ahead with any kind of healthcare fix that could pass muster in the Senate.
He noted that there was a sense that "maybe the Obamacare language wasn't as adherent to that philosophy [of Hyde] as it should be."
"But that's not something that we're looking — able to change right now," he said. "Because, quite frankly, if you put Hyde up to a vote among Democrats today, as opposed to Democrats 20 years ago, it would probably fail 46 to one on the Democrat side. So unfortunately, most Democrats today feel that there should be federal funding for abortion."