By Phil Mattingly
A bipartisan health care deal, announced by Republican leaders Tuesday and long negotiated between Sens. Lamar Alexander and Patty Murray, has been reached.
The question now is can Alexander, a Tennessee Republican, and Murray, a Washington Democrat, whip the support to actually force leaders to consider the measure to fund the cost-sharing reduction payments to insurers for two years and increase state regulatory waiver speed and flexibility. The short answer to this: they’ve got a long way to go.
The key to all of this: President Donald Trump. Period. And he just dropped a bomb on this whole process with this tweet:
“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.
Tuesday night at his Heritage Foundation speech President Trump said “I’m pleased the Democrats have finally responded to my call for them to take responsibility for their Obamacare disaster and work with Republicans to provide much-needed relief to the American people. While I commend the bipartisan work done by Sens. Alexander and Murray — and I do commend it — I continue to believe Congress must find a solution to the Obamacare mess instead of providing bailouts to insurance companies.”
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