Epstein vote was easy; health insurance changes are not
Just before this week’s vote in Congress ordering the release of the Jeffrey Epstein sex abuse files, House Republicans met behind closed doors at the U.S. Capitol to talk about what’s ahead on health care policy.
Inside, concerns were aired about the lack of a GOP plan to deal with expiring subsidies under the Obama health law, which had been the central battleground for Democrats during the 43-day government shutdown.
Asked if a GOP plan had been presented on the subsidies, Republicans had little to offer to reporters. “Nope,” came the curt answer from U.S. Rep. Buddy Carter, R-St. Simons Island.
No one should be surprised by the lack of action, as there is strong GOP opposition to making even minor changes to Obamacare in the House.
“Democrats created Obamacare without a single Republican vote,” U.S. Rep. Andrew Clyde, R-Athens, said earlier this month.
President Donald Trump this week said he wants to send money directly to Americans to help them pay for health insurance — but that seemed to gain little traction on Capitol Hill.
The most likely place to see a deal is in the Senate, where senators in both parties have been discussing the approaching subsidies deadline for months.
“Millions of Americans, including 1.2 million Georgians, will experience severe increases in their monthly health insurance premiums,” said U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock, D-Ga. “A lot of folks will lose coverage.”
But at the hearing on Wednesday where Warnock spoke, there was little common ground among lawmakers or health experts and no obvious building blocks for some kind of deal.
“Right now, it’s like trench warfare,” said U.S. Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., a doctor who has been trying to find a bipartisan way forward. “We have got to move beyond being a D or an R.”
Senate Democrats have been promised a vote in December on the subsidies. No matter the final details, it’s hard to imagine a complicated subject like this getting addressed before Christmas.
“We’ve got to stop having this cross talk,” said U.S. Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., who supports a one-year extension of the insurance subsidies while other reforms are hashed out by lawmakers.
It may be that the most likely outcome is no action at all, resulting in higher health care costs for millions, many of them in GOP-led states like Georgia.
“The Republican health care plan is about as real as the tooth fairy, so I won’t hold my breath,” said U.S. Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash.
Voting to release the Epstein files was easy. Designing major health care reforms is not. Congress will probably remind you of that in December.
Jamie Dupree has covered national politics and Congress from Washington, D.C., since the Reagan administration. His column appears weekly in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. For more, check out his Capitol Hill newsletter at http://jamiedupree.substack.com
