Senate health Chairman Lamar Alexander spoke on the Senate floor today where he laid out his goals for a Senate health care bill.
He said, “Number one, rescue the thousands of Tennesseans and millions of Americans who under the Affordable Care Act will be trapped in Obamacare exchanges with few or zero options for health insurance in the year 2018 unless Congress acts.
“Number two, my second goal is to lower premium costs. Premium costs have increased and in some states are going through the roof under the Affordable Care Act.
“Number three, to gradually transfer to the states more flexibility in administering the Medicaid program, and to do that in such a way as to not pull the rug out from under those who rely on the Medicaid program.
“And number four, to make sure that those who have pre-existing health conditions have access to health insurance. This is one thing in the Affordable Care Act that has strong support from just about everybody, including the president, that if you have a pre-existing condition, you must have access to health care. And we need to make sure that is still true in any bill that we create in the Senate.”
Alexander also spoke on the urgency to address the problems in the individual insurance market, saying, “Yesterday we heard that the only insurer left in Iowa is now likely to leave. That means more than 70,000 people on the exchanges will have no insurance to buy. Most of them will have subsidies from the government so it's like thousands of people in Iowa who have bus tickets in a town where no buses run.
“And that's what's happening right now because of the 2010 law which we call the Affordable Care Act.
“I know this all too well because 34,000 people in the Knoxville, Tennessee area, my home area, are going to have subsidies in 2018 but no insurance to buy with the subsidies unless Congress acts.”
Video of his remarks is available here.
