WASHINGTON (CN) - Members of the Senate Health Committee inched toward a bipartisan compromise Tuesday for insurers whose subsidies are on shaky ground as lawmakers battle over the future of health care.
"Despite our partisan differences, our two hearings last week demonstrated a real hunger by many senators on both sides of the aisle to come to a result," said Sen. Lamar Alexander, who chairs the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions.
The committee’s hearing this morning marked its third of a four-part series ahead of the Sept. 20 deadline for insurers to file their 2018 individual exchange rates with the Department of Health and Human Services — part of the decision whether to participate in the individual markets next year.
With some insurers already jumping ship because uncertainty about the future of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, lawmakers on the HELP Committee hope to vote on a bill by the end of this week intended to stabilize the individual markets.
A Tennessee Republican, Alexander said his party and the Democrats are aligned on several key themes, including congressional approval of cost-sharing reduction payments.
A subsidy that President Donald Trump has explicitly threatened to cut, these cost-sharing payments compensate insurers for offering discounted plans to lower-income Americans, reducing their out-of-pocket cost of deductibles, co-payments and coinsurance.
Of the five types of health care coverage available in the marketplace, all named for precious metals, the senators also want to expand the availability of a lowest-tier plan, copper.
The last point of agreement so far is giving states more flexibility on 1332 state innovation waivers, named for a section of the Affordable Care Act that allows for variation in how states implement key provisions of the law.
Several smaller details, however, are still holding up the bill in committee. Alexander said the two sides only agree in full on expanding copper plans, which could attract more people into the markets and spread risk out across insurance pools. The plans would cover less of the out-of-pocket costs in exchange for significantly cheaper premiums.
In terms of the cost-sharing payments, Alexander wants the federal government to continue making them through 2018, but Democrats would like to see funding for those payments extended for several years.
Alexander's Democratic counterpart, Sen. Patty Murray of Washington, said doing the bare minimum on that issue is unacceptable.
Bernard Tyson, CEO and chairman of the Kaiser Foundation Hospitals and Health Plan, bolstered Murray's assertion on the cost-sharing payments. In his testimony to the committee Tuesday, Tyson said cutting off the payments after 2018 would be a “mistake.”
He urged the committee to continue them for at least three years, and suggested that they consider making the payments more permanent to lure insurers back into the markets.