Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., has plenty of nice things to say about the Alexander-Murray healthcare reform bill, but is fixing his focus on a “higher hurdle.”
“I support their efforts, but let’s be honest,” Johnson said, “getting Democrats unanimously to fund Obamacare is not a real heavy lift in exchange for pretty minor additional flexibility on what’s already part of the law.”
In a Tuesday editorial board meeting with the Washington Examiner, Johnson explained he believes the “higher hurdle” to clear is “overcoming that rhetoric and getting conservatives and Republicans in the House to fund CSRs in exchange for reasonable reform.”
As his colleagues push to reach bipartisan solutions, Johnson, who is also collaborating on legislation with Republicans in the lower chamber and the White House, wants to challenge Democrats to put their money where their mouths are. “Are they really willing to start repairing the damage done by Obamacare?” he asked. “Premiums that have doubled, sometimes, tripled, or more.”
“Are they really willing to seriously sit down and address the faulty architecture of Obamacare?” the senator continued. “I would like this CSR payment issue to make that point.”
“So what I’m looking for in return is pretty simple,” he said.
Johnson’s solution, which he hopes to add to the bipartisan bill, works towards five principles: improved price transparency, expanded insurance options, strengthened consumer-directed plans, reduced mandates, and lower premiums. In practice, that involves provisions that would, for example, expand the use of health savings accounts, delay the employer mandate through 2019, delay the individual mandate for a year, and restore the 364-day limit to short-term plans.
“The problem is they have that bipartisan agreement now. They will cling to that until we can show them an alternative,” Johnson told us Tuesday.
Even if producing such an alternative means getting his colleagues to jump a little higher, Johnson has his sights set on clearing that hurdle.
Emily Jashinsky is a commentary writer for the Washington Examiner.
