Alexander-Murray health care proposal delayed, removing obstacle to avoiding government shutdown

WASHINGTON – A major obstacle to passing a short-term spending bill by the end of the week was eliminated Wednesday when two key Republican senators asked GOP leaders not to consider health-care legislation as part of the legislation.

Senate Republican leaders had considered attaching the health-care proposal to the short-term spending bill to keep the government running through mid-January. But that approach ran into resistance from hardline conservatives in the House, who balked at approving what they consider a giveaway to insurance companies.

“Rather than considering a broad year-end funding agreement as we expected, it has become clear that Congress will only be able to pass another short-term extension to prevent a government shutdown and to continue a few essential programs,” Sens. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee and Susan Collins of Maine said in a joint statement.

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For that reason, Alexander and Collins said, they asked Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell not to offer the health care legislation this week. The senators said they would offer the bill early next year.

“There is every reason to believe that these important provisions can and will be delivered as part of a bipartisan (budget) agreement,” the senators said. “And Majority Leader McConnell has told us that he will uphold his commitment to schedule and support the legislation.”

The health care bill, which would restore for two years the government subsidies paid to insurers that provide health-care coverage to low-income clients, was seen as a way of lowering premiums for individuals who buy their coverage through one of the Affordable Care Act exchanges, or marketplaces.

The bill was pieced together during bipartisan negotiations between Alexander, who chairs the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, and the panel’s top Democrat, Patty Murray of Washington.

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In exchange for her support for a separate tax-reform package, Collins said McConnell had promised her that the Senate would vote by the end of the year on that bill and another health-care proposal that she sponsored to create high-risk insurance pools to help provide coverage for people with high medical costs.

The subsidies extension was to be attached to the short-term spending bill, which must be approved by midnight Friday, when the government will run out of money and face a possible shutdown.

In her statement, Collins said House Speaker Paul Ryan called her Wednesday afternoon and said the House remains committed to passing legislation to provide high-risk pools and other reinsurance mechanisms that she has introduced.

“He pointed out that by waiting until early next year, we will be able to use a new (Congressional Budget Office) baseline that will result in more funding being available for reinsurance programs that have been proven effective in lowering premiums while protecting people with pre-existing conditions like diabetes, heart disease, and arthritis,” Collins said.

Meanwhile, House Republicans were continuing negotiations Wednesday on the short-term spending measure to keep the government open.

The short-term proposal had been expected to provide a full year of defense spending, extend funding for non-defense programs at existing levels through Jan. 19, and include $81 billion in disaster aid for states ravaged by this year’s hurricanes and forest fires.

But with just two days left to avoid a government shutdown, GOP leaders have changed strategy and are now looking to continue current spending levels on both defense and non-defense programs through mid-January. The disaster aid funding would likely be considered in a separate bill.