The Hill

Govs. John Kasich of Ohio (R) and John Hickenlooper of Colorado (D) announced Monday that they have reached an agreement on a bipartisan proposal to stabilize ObamaCare markets.

The governors, who have been calling for bipartisanship on healthcare in a series of recent interviews, are not yet releasing the details of their stabilization plan.

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While Republicans fret over how many taxpayer-funded patches they will have to stick on ObamaCare to keep it on life-support, Democrats are already moving on to their real goal: a government-run, single-payer healthcare system.

Moderate Republicans like Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) are hoping to find bipartisan support for legislation that will save the individual (i.e., non-group) health insurance market and keep the ObamaCare exchanges from collapsing.

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Ohio Gov. John Kasich (R) and Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper (D) are working on a bipartisan proposal to stabilize ObamaCare that they say could be unveiled as soon as a week from now.

“We’re getting very close,” Kasich said in a joint interview with Hickenlooper on Colorado Public Radio. “I just talked to my guys today, and men and women who are working on this with John’s people, and we think we’ll have some specifics here. John, I actually think we could have it within a week.”

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Iowa on Tuesday submitted to the federal government a final request to make changes to try to shore up its struggling ObamaCare insurance marketplace.

The plan from the Iowa Insurance Division is intended to be a short-term market stabilization solution to entice more insurers into the marketplace. The state is facing what it calls a “collapse” of its ObamaCare marketplace after all but one insurer declined to offer plans for 2018.

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Like the Affordable Care Act (ObamaCare) or not, it’s impossible to deny that many exchanges — and consumers — are facing down a crisis. According to HHS, the number of participating insurers is down 38 percent this year. Just this month, Anthem BlueCross BlueShield announced it was leaving Nevada’s exchanges, and insurance companies nationwide are struggling with uncertainty over whether the Trump administration will pay out billions in expected federal subsidies.

Most worrisome is that the individual market itself appears to be shrinking, and 2.4 million Americans will have only one available insurance option. Average rate increases are, for the second straight year, expected to be in the double-digit range in 2018.

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The conservative House Freedom Caucus on Friday is planning a move to try and force a vote on an ObamaCare repeal bill.

A spokeswoman for the group said members plan to file a “discharge petition,” which would force a vote on a repeal bill if it gets signatures from a majority of the House.

The move is usually used to go around leadership and try to bring up a measure to the floor for a vote.

The plan comes as the Freedom Caucus, and some other Republicans, are pushing to keep the repeal effort alive, despite the Senate’s failed vote last month.

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Senators who walked off the floor around 2 a.m. Friday after the stunning defeat of the latest GOP ObamaCare repeal effort face tough questions on how to move forward.

GOP leaders sounded pessimistic notes that the failure would lead to compromise or bipartisan work on healthcare, though some members said they hoped it would spur leaders to start a more formal process of committee work after months on Senate bills being drawn up behind closed doors.

“We’re not adverse to that,” said Sen. John Thune, the No. 3 Republican leader. “I just don’t have high hopes that we’re going to get anything that really solves the problems that we think exist with ObamaCare today.”

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Portions of the Republican bill to repeal and replace ObamaCare will require 60 votes for passage, the Senate parliamentarian said Tuesday evening. The parliamentarian has advised senators that two provisions could be stripped out, according to a document released Tuesday by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), the ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee.

The provisions in question would allow insurers to charge older people premiums up to five times as high as what they charge younger people — which AARP has called an “age tax” — and would allow small businesses to establish “association health plans” that could be sold across state lines. That aspect has been championed by Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.)

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