Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) said he planned to present Republican leadership with his health care plan as soon as Sunday night, predicting that the divisive proposal to put money directly in Americans’ health savings accounts could clear the 60-vote threshold needed to pass in the Senate.
“We’re working to deliver to Leader Thune and Speaker Johnson a plan, which I think could get 60 votes, which gives the American people the power, and they can choose a lower premium and an HSA,” he said in an interview on “Fox News Sunday” with host Shannon Bream. “We’re working on that. And I’ll give them a piece of paper probably by e-mail tonight.”
Cassidy is pushing for congressional leadership to advance his health care plan, which encourages Americans enrolled in Obamacare to switch to lower-premium, bronze-level plans with the hope that they would be able to afford higher out-of-pocket health care costs with new funding in their HSAs.
But the proposal faces skepticism from Democrats and health policy experts, who caution that it would do too little to help consumers facing skyrocketing premiums — merely shifting who they’d pay when — as health care subsidies are set to expire at the end of the year if Congress doesn’t work out a deal to extend them.
Cassidy, who chairs the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, acknowledged: “You can’t fix everything by January 1, 2026” but said the decision about whether or not to extend health care subsidies to some extent while lawmakers debate a more sprawling overhaul of Obamacare is ultimately “a political decision.”
Cassidy said he’d been talking to Democrats about his proposal and that there was “absolute interest” in bipartisan cooperation.
“We may disagree on the threshold. … But if we can get to a framework where they give the American people a choice, they can stay with the policy they have with a $6,000 deductible or they can go to another policy with a lower premium and money in a health savings account for them to purchase that which they do, the rest is just political decisions,” he told Bream.
House Speaker Mike Johnson was set to huddle with Republican leaders on the Hill this weekend as he races to finalize a plan ahead of Tuesday’s GOP conference meeting.
Johnson told POLITICO last week he hopes to schedule a vote on a health care package before the end of the year, but House Majority Leader Steve Scalise was noncommittal on a timeline.
House leaders are considering pulling from an array of GOP proposals, including a bipartisan pitch for a one-year extension of the subsidies led by Reps. Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.) and Jen Kiggans (R-Va.) and a two-year extension plan pushed by Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.).
President Donald Trump, who has voiced support for Cassidy’s health savings account plan, has opted not to wade into the details of what should be included in a health care package.
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