In the wake of Senate Republicans’ decision to delay consideration of their health care repeal bill, the “Better Care Reconciliation Act (BCRA), it is clear that their partisan approach has little support and would inflict widespread harm on the American people. This moment is an inflection point where Senate Republicans can choose one of two paths: They can continue to pursue repeal, or they can work with Senate Democrats on a bipartisan basis to stabilize insurance markets.
In its letter of opposition to the BCRA, the American Medical Association (AMA) said that the bill violates the principle of “first, do no harm” on “many levels.” A bill that primarily guts Medicaid to finance tax cuts for the rich is not one designed to fix any problem with the insurance markets. In fact, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) assessed that the BCRA will do just the opposite; the elimination of the individual mandate will cause premium rate shock in 2018 and insurance markets will collapse in some areas after 2019.
Bipartisan legislation would be simple and easy to put together—it would consist of four pages of legislative text that Senate Republicans have already written as part of the BCRA. It would easily command supermajorities because many Democrats and Republicans would support a bill that fixes the ACA, not destroys it—proving that the majority party can govern and restoring some faith in the Senate as an institution. Most importantly, it would work; the legislation would implement evidence-based policies that have been proven to work in Alaska and Maine.
In this brief, the Center for American Progress is proposing specific legislation, the Market Stability and Premium Reduction Act, included in the Appendix of this column. The Center for American Progress urges senators to chart a new course and work together on a bipartisan basis to first, do no harm, and second, resolve uncertainty in insurance markets.
HENRY KOTULA 