�Թϲ�����

A bipartisan governor duo is urging Congress to retain the federal health care law's unpopular individual mandate while seeking to stabilize individual insurance markets as lawmakers work on a long-term replacement. The recommendation is part of a compromise plan that's designed to be palatable to both parties. It was endorsed by six other governors. (Smyth and Anderson, 8/31)

In a blueprint issued Thursday, the eight governors ask House and Senate leaders of both parties to take several steps to reverse the rising rates and dwindling choices facing many of the 10 million Americans who buy health plans on their own through ACA marketplaces. Specifically, the state leaders say Congress should devote money for at least two years toward “cost-sharing subsidies” that the 2010 health-care law promises to pay ACA insurers to offset deductibles and other out-of-pocket expenses for lower-income customers. The House sued the Obama administration over the subsidies’ legality, and President Trump has repeatedly suggested that he might halt the payments — sending tremors through insurance companies in the marketplaces. (Goldstein, 8/31)

The compromise plan, which is spearheaded by Govs. John Kasich of Ohio (R) and John Hickenlooper of Colorado (D), is meant to help lawmakers find common ground to help stabilize the insurance markets. The governors acknowledged that the mandate, which requires people to purchase health insurance or pay a fine, is unpopular. “[B]ut for the time being it is perhaps the most important incentive for healthy people to enroll in coverage,” they wrote to House and Senate leaders of both parties. “Until Congress comes up with a better solution — or states request waivers to implement a workable alternative — the individual mandate is necessary to keep markets stable in the short term.” (Weixel, 8/31)

“We need immediate action to ensure consumers have affordable options in the short term,” the governors said in the letter, which was sent to Democratic and Republican leaders of Congress. “Continuing uncertainty about the direction of federal policy is driving up premiums, eliminating competition, and leaving consumers with fewer choices.”(Tracer and Edney, 8/31)

Kasich and Hickenlooper have worked together for months in hopes of stopping congressional Republicans from taking health coverage away from at least 22 million Americans, as the Congressional Budget Office says would happen under various Republican repeal or replace proposals. The governors say the proposals listed above may not be a long-term solution, but if they stabilize markets and end uncertainty, Congress will have time to come up with something fuller. (Koff, 8/31)

A coalition of eight governors, led by Colorado’s John Hickenlooper and Ohio’s John Kasich, put forward 18 recommendations Thursday and demanded immediate action from Congress to stabilize and lower costs on the individual health insurance market. The bipartisan blueprint seeks to break the gridlock in Washington on the issue of health care with modest fixes, but it faced criticism from conservatives because it would preserve the Affordable Care Act and individual mandate. (Frank, 8/31)

Two healthcare trains may be headed for a collision in Congress next month, as a bipartisan group of governors and three Senate Republicans push clashing visions of how to fix the Affordable Care Act. But it's unclear whether Republicans and Democrats will be able to agree on any bill—or whether President Donald Trump will sign one—before the Sept. 27 deadline for insurers to decide whether to offer individual-market plans in 2018. (Meyer, 8/31)