Trump Is Open to an ACA Deal With the Democrats: Lamar Alexander

By Allison Bell

October 17, 2017 at 09:02 PM

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A top Republican senator says he has backing from President Donald Trump to try to hammer out a bipartisan Affordable Care Act deal with Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash.

The senator, Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., told reporters in Washington he has support for his negotiations from Trump, according to separate reports from CNN and Bloomberg.

Alexander said he and Murray hope to come up with the support to appropriate and extend funding for a major Affordable Care Act subsidy program, the cost-sharing reduction subsidy program. The program helps low-income Affordable Care Act public exchange plan users pay their deductibles, co-payments and coinsurance amounts.

One challenge is attracting enough Republican votes in both the House and the Senate to keep an Affordable Care Act subsidy program alive.

A related, but separate, challenge is rounding up enough support from Republicans to getting a subsidy funding measure onto the floor in both the House and the Senate.

"Our goal is to find a consensus of a significant number of Republicans and Democrats who are willing to support and co-sponsor a limited agreement that extends cost-sharing payments for two years and gives states meaningful flexibility," Alexander said, according to the CNN account of his remarks.

—-Read 3 Weird Ways a 2018 ACA Subsidy Cut Could Help You on ThinkAdvisor.

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