On the recordMarch 22, 2018
Mr. President, I will be very brief. The first thing I want to do is to thank Senators Alexander and Collins for trying to work very hard to solve a problem that we can fix. There are a lot of things about healthcare that I don't see us fixing between now and tomorrow. This is not one of them. Healthcare is very complex. It is one-fifth of the economy. I think there is a better way to do healthcare than ObamaCare. Most Republicans want to replace it. Most Democrats want to repair it. We are not talking about that. We are talking about an island of agreement that will matter between now and October--what Senator Alexander and Murray came up with. You had bipartisan support. There are two provisions that allow flexibility in terms of the 1332 regulations and to continue payments to make sure that person who makes too much for a subsidy but not enough to be self-sufficient when it comes to healthcare gets a little bit of help. That is the plumber and the other people that Senator Alexander described. President Obama took care of these people through Executive action. That has been found to be unconstitutional by our courts. Legislatively, we are trying to continue this program to help somebody whose premiums are going through the roof but who are not eligible for the statutory subsidies and create a new level of help that will keep their premiums from skyrocketing and actually decrease their premiums in October by 40 percent.…





