Health Care Bill Is Dead for the Year, Committee Leaders Say

Health Care Bill Is Dead for the Year, Committee Leaders Say

By Erin Mershon, CQ Roll Call, March 24, 2017

Committee chairmen who oversee health care acknowledged that legislative efforts to revise the 2010 law are over this year after House Speaker Paul D. Ryan abandoned the Republican bill Friday.

"This bill is dead," said Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Greg Walden, R-Ore.

"The president has said he's moving on, and unless he changes his mind, we're moving on," said Ways and Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady, R-Texas. "Obamacare is clearly still in place and it's continuing to collapse, and we worked very hard to avoid that."

Brady said he won't try to address some aspects of health care through the congressional tax overhaul that is expected to come up next on the House agenda.

Asked whether all legislative efforts on health care were really over, Brady said yes.

"This was the moment," he said. "We fought hard."

Pat Tiberi, R-Ohio, who chairs the Ways and Means Health Subcommittee, told CQ he's still thinking through exactly what he will do in his panel now that the repeal legislation has been axed.

"The challenge is, the president says he's done with it now, let it collapse," Tiberi said. "But even if you succeed at the challenge of getting things through the House and the Senate on the same page, if the president's not for it, I don't know how you do it."

The health care law and its marketplaces may face continued tumult. Republicans slammed Democrats for what they called sky-high premium increases, insurer bankruptcies and several major insurance companies' decisions to withdraw from the markets in which they participated.

Trump has suggested that will be the Democrats' fault and their political headache. At his press conference, he sought to blame Democrats for the nation's health coverage troubles.

"The losers are Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer, because they own Obamacare. They 100 percent own it," Trump said. "They have Obamacare for a little while longer until it ceases to exist, which it will at some point in the near future.

"When they all become civilized and get together, and try to work out a great health care bill for the people of this country, we're open to it," Trump said.

Coverage Challenges Ahead

The policy issues up for consideration have high stakes. A lawsuit between the House of Representatives and the Trump administration threatens billions of dollars in subsidies that insurance companies have said are vital to the stabilization of the markets. Both parties agreed to freeze the court case last month, but the end of the subsidies could upend the entire market created by the health care law (PL 111-148, PL 111-152).

It's unclear whether House Republicans will agree to fund those subsidies and drop the lawsuit. The uncertainty about the subsidies and the administration's next steps will challenge insurance companies, who must submit their 2018 price requests to regulators by early May.

"Now instead of trying to improve our health care system and improve people's lives, it seems like President Trump is going to sit back and try to root for the system to fail," said Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y. "That is not what a president is supposed to do. He's supposed to help the people."

Democrats, at least, say they are ready to work together to fix the health care law.

"If they get off repeal and denounce repeal, say that they're not going to go for repeal, we'll sit and work with them on it," Schumer said.

Asked specifically about the cost-sharing subsidies, Tiberi said it was too early for those conversations.

But he suggested the House might be able to repeal some of the health law taxes during the chamber's work on a tax overhaul.

"Maybe," he said. "I think it's something to look at, particularly the taxes we're repealing, we believe have hurt economic growth, job development, creation. It's not something we were looking at, we were looking at doing it this way."

Walden suggested that the House effort is done, and it would be up to the Senate to revive the conversation.

"They are free to move their own reconciliation bill or bring their own health care bills forward," Walden said.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., showed no desire to do that. He praised the unsuccessful attempts by Trump and Ryan.

"I share their disappointment that this effort came up short,” McConnell said.

Joseph Williams, Kerry Young, Andrew Siddons and John Bennett contributed to this report.