Grassley, Ernst disappointed in skinny repeal defeat

Iowa's two Republican senators expressed disappointment Friday at the defeat of a GOP plan to repeal parts of the Affordable Care Act, a blow that for now has taken the health care issue off the table in Congress.

Sens. Chuck Grassley and Joni Ernst both voted for the so-called 'skinny repeal” after midnight Friday. The measure went down to defeat, 49-51, with three Republicans voting with the Democrats to oppose it.

The measure would have eliminated the Affordable Care Act's requirement that individuals get insurance and that companies with more than 50 employees provide it.

In statements Friday, neither Grassley nor Ernst pointed to what might be the path forward for their party.

'The result is disappointing,” Grassley said in a statement. 'The health care situation is the same as before. Obamacare has not delivered on its promises and is failing.”

Ernst, too, called the result disappointing and added, 'We don't have the option to sit back and do nothing: Iowans are demanding relief from Obamacare.”

The view from Democrats was different. Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., called the defeat a victory for Illinois, saving a million of them from losing insurance coverage.

'Under these various repeal bills, every family with health insurance would have seen the reliability of that insurance crumble,” Durbin said.

The Congressional Budget Office estimated that the number of uninsured in the U.S. would go up by 16 million next year if the skinny repeal bill were to become law.

Many Republicans, like Grassley, said they were hoping to get a bill to a House-Senate conference committee so that a more comprehensive measure could be hammered out.

However, some Democrats warned the House might just take the bill up, pass it and send it to President Donald Trump. Early in the day, some Republicans had those concerns, too.

In Iowa, as in the rest of the country, the debate was watched closely. Iowa has just one insurer, Minnesota-based Medica, that has said it plans to participate in the Affordable Care Act exchange for 2018.

Republicans have blamed the current law for what they call the collapsing marketplace. Democrats say the uncertainty surrounding the GOP's repeal-and-replace efforts caused the situation.

Either way, 72,000 Iowans who buy insurance on their own have just one choice for coverage, and Medica has proposed an average 43 percent premium increase for next year.

In a statement, Medica said Friday that repealing just the individual mandate was a bad idea, but added, 'we hope the vote in the Senate did not close the door to Congress taking some positive actions to provide short term stability for markets.”

Insurers have pushed for Congress to approve cost-sharing and reinsurance funding, which they say would provide stability.

Medica said the failure of the repeal-and-replace bills would have no impact on its 2018 plans for Iowa.

Iowa's insurance division has asked the Trump administration for approval of a stopgap measure that would permit the sale of a single, standardized insurance plan and the use of federal funding to pay for restructured premium tax credits and a reinsurance plan to help with people with higher medical costs.

The administration has not yet announced a decision on the plan.