Bernie Indicates A Democratic Consensus On Fixing The ACA

Bernie Sanders was just on MSNBC and he made some important news regarding the Democrats approach to health care now that Mitch McConnell has pulled the vote on the BCRA until at least after the July recess.

Sanders was pressed on whether Democrats should be offering their own solution and he agreed that they should. Rather than just pivoting immediately to single payer, Sanders said the Democrats will be putting forward ideas like adding a public option so that no county will go without an insurance option as well as reducing the Medicare eligibility age to 55. He described these options as a path to single payer.

Sanders statement indicates that Democrats may actually be unified in pushing these fixes for the ACA now that it appears that Republicans can not jam through their own plan on their own. McConnell may still take another run at a strictly GOP option but Democrats are in a far better position now on this issue than they have been since Trump was elected.

Needless to say, Trump is always a wildcard. In his fury, he may actually stop paying the insurer subsidies, further sabotaging Obamacare for next year. In addition, McConnell made it clear in his statement a moment ago that he is not interested in working with Democrats and will continue to try and twist arms and pass the bill after the July recess.

As it is right now, insurers are completely up in the air about what the state of play will be in 2018. Whether that means even more of them will pull out of the exchanges in 2018 is unclear at present but would hardly be surprising should it happen. Further issues in the exchanges will turn 2018 into a PR battle over who should be responsible, Republicans and Democrats. I’m betting that Republicans, with their billions in dark money, believe they can win that fight.