Heidi Alexander: “I want to briefly thank the Senator from Delaware. As the Senator from South Dakota said, this has been a very…”

“I want to briefly thank the Senator from Delaware. As the Senator from South Dakota said, this has been a very contentious issue, but we thought that if we listened enough, we might find a few things we could agree on. Senator Murray and I not only involved our committee, which is a committee of 22 or 23 Senators, but we invited anyone not on the committee to come and meet with the witnesses--the Governors and the State insurance commissioners--for an hour before the hearings. We had nearly 60 Senators involved in the entire process on those 4 days. That is pretty remarkable when you have 60 Senators--more than half of whom are not on the committee of jurisdiction--attending and participating, and that helped develop what we did. The person with the best attendance was Mr. Carper, the Senator from Delaware. He is not a member of the committee, but he came to every one of the committee meetings, and he often stayed for the hearings themselves. I thank him for his active participation. In boiling it all down, I think what we are trying to say is, there is a lot we still do not agree on, but we have heard the American people. Healthcare is on their minds. They are signing up, and those who are in the individual market are getting sticker shock if they do not have any government support. For the next couple of years, we have a plan that will avoid chaos and begin to limit the growth of premiums and, in 2019, reduce premiums.…”