Heidi Alexander: “I have said repeatedly over the last several weeks that while it is important that the two of us, as the chairman and…”

“I have said repeatedly over the last several weeks that while it is important that the two of us, as the chairman and the ranking member of the HELP Committee, come to an agreement, that is not nearly enough because our real job was and is to see if we can find, among a significant number of Republicans and a significant number of Democratic Senators, a consensus that will cause this to be enacted, will cause the Senate to pass it and the House to pass it and the President to sign it. In my opinion, we wouldn't have come to an agreement ourselves unless we thought that was likely. I will not go into the specific provisions that are in this, except to briefly summarize them. The first group of them makes the section 1332 innovation waivers work by giving more flexibility. In New Hampshire, for example, the State would like to use Medicaid savings to help pay for the cost of its Affordable Care Act waiver, and this would allow that. In Maine, for example, the State has applied for a waiver. The waiver has been approved, but the use of the funding has not been approved. This would allow that. Alaska, Oklahoma, Iowa, for example, all have waivers in line that they would like to submit to give a greater variety of choices in their States and hopefully lower premium costs, but it is too restrictive under the current conditions.…”