Colorado Politics

Hickenlooper to spell out bipartisan healthcare plan he and Kasich drew up

Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper has summoned the press to the state Capitol Thursday morning to lay out the bipartisan healthcare proposal he and Ohio Gov. John Kasich have been working on and talking about for weeks.

Hickenlooper, a Democrat, and Kasich, a Republican, are being discussed nationally as an odd couple who might form an alternative ticket for the White House in 2020.

Republicans and Democrats in Washington haven’t been able to crack the partisan nutshell around affordable, quality healthcare for Americans. Republicans who have railed on Obamacare for years, haven’t been able to repeal or replace the Affordable Care Act with their own plan.

The swing state governors hope to provide the plan to Congress when it returns from its August recess in a few days.

The problems with Obamacare have been a lack of competition among insurers because of lagging enrollment. Many insurers have fled the exchanges that were created under Obamacare to sell to people who don’t have insurance subsidized by their employers. Those who have policies have seen double-digit increases in their premiums with high deductibles.

“There will be things that we will address that will have specific solutions,” Kasich told the Washington Examiner last week, promising his proposal with Hickenlooper would not be “some pie in the sky, way up there kind of stuff.”

Kasich and Hickenlooper have been on Sunday morning TV and penning op-eds on the subject, saying it’s too important to squander with partisan brawls.

Hickenlooper said on “Face the Nation” on Aug. 6 that he thinks senators will listen.

“I think we’ll be surprised at the number of senators that are willing to kind of step back and say, ‘Alright, let’s roll up our sleeves and work on a bipartisan basis and see how far we can go,'” the Colorado governor said.

Hickenlooper’s announcement will be carried on a livestream on the governor’s Facebook page.


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