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Hickenlooper leads governors asking for cooperation on healthcare

By JOEY BUNCH 10/19/2017 | updated 8 years ago

Colorado’s Gov. John Hickenlooper leads a group of 10 governors asking Congress to vote on a bipartisan healthcare plan they say will calm the troubled waters of the private health insurance market.

The support a bipartisan deal led by Sens. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., and Patty Murray, D-Wash., for a two-year extension of federal subsidies to insurers for low-income people. Trump has moved to blocked them, however.

“We urge Congress to quickly pass legislation to stabilize our private health insurance markets and make quality health insurance more available and affordable,” states the letter to top Republican and Democratic leaders in the House and Senate.

Besides the wild card in the White House, the legislation has other challenges.

The influential group National Right to Life wants specific language to make sure any subsidized coverage the pays for abortion. Moreover, House Speaker Paul Ryan’s office says he is not swayed, and prefers the Senate keeping working on an Obamacare repeal.

The governors say in their letter that, at the very least, Congress should should preserve the subsidies that allow low wage-earners to maintain insurance.

The full letter is available here.

Hickenlooper is joined by Republican Govs. John Kasich of Ohio, Charlie Baker of Massachusetts, Steve Bullock of Montana, Bill Walker of Alaska, Tom Wolf of Pennsylvania, Brian Sandoval of New Mexico, Terry McAuliffe of Virginia, John Bel Edwards of Louisiana and Phil Scott of Vermont.

Hickenlooper has been on a campaign for a bipartisan negotiation after Republicans tried and failed last summer to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act.

He and Kasich took the lead, and drew up a plan, which you can read here.

Colorado’s governor unveiled the proposal at the Capitol in Denver before heading to Washington to testify on Capitol Hill.

The proposal calls for an active state and federal partnership, creating reasonable reforms that preserve coverages and control costs.

“Is this going to fix all that’s wrong in our healthcare system?” Hickenlooper said in August. “No. Clearly that’s not going to happen, but this is a taking a big bite out of a very large problem.”

JOEY BUNCH

Reporter

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