Senate Republicans blocked a Democratic effort on Tuesday to overturn a Trump administration rule they say will make it harder for people to enroll in Affordable Care Act health insurance plans and raise costs for existing participants.
Democrats forced a vote to undo the regulation under the Congressional Review Act, which failed 48-50, with Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) joining with Democrats to support the measure. Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wisconsin), who introduced the measure, said the rule will price 2 million Americans out of their health care coverage.
“Americans have been clear that they need lower health care costs. And what does President Trump do to respond? He pushes a policy that will cause out-of-pocket costs to skyrocket, reduce the benefits you get for the same plan, and terminate coverage for two million Americans,” Baldwin said in a statement ahead of the vote.
The ACA rule change, finalized by the Trump administration in May, was touted as a way to combat enrollment fraud, lower health care premiums and offer a wider range of plans for insurers.
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It implements tighter income verification requirements and new eligibility checks for ACA enrollees while establishing new health care plans, some with higher out-of-pocket cost limits and others without dedicated networks of doctors and hospitals. Democrats deride such plans as “junk insurance.”
Republicans have argued that falling enrollment in ACA marketplace plans under the Trump administration is a positive sign. The right-leaning Paragon Health Institute, for example, said that a decline in the number of those enrolled in the ACA exchanges largely represents a removal of “improper enrollees” and “enrollees who never used their coverage.”
Democrats have slammed the rule for its potential to increase the costs of existing plans by luring away healthier enrollees, to reduce benefits for certain treatments like substance disorder programs and hearing aids, and to narrow the number of providers available to some enrollees.
Tuesday’s vote represents an effort by Democrats to spotlight rising health care costs and tackle voters’ larger affordability concerns ahead of the November midterms. Democrats have repeatedly spotlighted the rising cost of health care this Congress, blocking government funding for 47 days last year over the enhanced ACA marketplace premiums that expired Jan. 1.
The move also comes as Senate Republicans prepare to force Democrats to take a number of difficult votes on the cost of living later this week, including on measures designed to curb the costs associated with data centers and artificial intelligence and another to put new limits on stock trading for members of Congress.
Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Oregon), the ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee, which oversees the Affordable Care Act, told The Washington Sun it’s important for Democrats to spotlight Republicans’ “hostility” toward implementing measures to lower health care costs ahead of November.
“We know that everything this administration is trying to do is to gut people’s opportunity to get quality, affordable healthcare. Senator Baldwin’s trying to stop it,” Wyden said. “The more you can show what the hostility to quality, affordable healthcare is, the more it tells people what this election is all about.
No Republicans spoke against the measure in brief debate before the vote.
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