The bipartisan legislation proposed last week as a short-term fix to the healthcare markets is a crutch for consumers, not a bailout for insurance companies, GOP Sens. Lamar Alexander and Mike Rounds wrote in a column for The Wall Street Journal.
Yes, the bill proposed by 12 Republican and 12 Democrats extends cost sharing reduction payments (CSR) for two years, but it does not go to the benefit of the Obamacare insurers, the senators wrote.
"The president doesn't want to 'bail out' insurance companies. We agree," Alexander and Rounds wrote. "This week CBO affirmed that our cost-sharing proposal benefits taxpayers and low-income policyholders, not insurers.
"The president doesn't want Americans to be hurt more before Obamacare is replaced. CBO says without cost-sharing they will be: Premiums would rise and insurers would flee collapsing markets, leaving up to 16 million Americans without options," the pair wrote.
"Such chaos would be a four-lane highway to single-payer insurance, a gift to Sen. Bernie Sanders. That's why House Republicans' repeal-and-replace bill continued cost-sharing for two years," wrote Alexander, chairman of the Senate Health Committee, and Rounds.
The CBO also found that the bill would reduced the deficit by $3.8 billion, whereas failing to extend the CSR would add $194 billion to the deficit over 10 years.
"This sounds like a proposal on its way to becoming a law. The sooner, the better," the senators wrote.
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