Friday on CNN’s “The Lead,” Rep. Kevin Kiley (R-CA) said he was “optimistic” Congress can reach a deal to extend the Affordable Care Act subsidies set to expire in January.
Host Phil Mattingly said, “I think something that is really important, especially going into the to the new year health insurance premiums set to skyrocket for millions of Americans in the next week. Senator Bill Cassidy, who’s been one of the lead negotiators on the Senate side for Republicans in health care talks, expressing some optimism about a potential deal, telling the Hill, ‘The outline of the deal would be to extend the enhanced premium tax credits for a period of time and put in health savings accounts to give the enrollee the choice of which to take.’ You have been on the House side of things, really pushing on this issue, advocating for a solution to this issue. Are you optimistic, at least in the near term, that there can be a solution here?”
Kiley said, “I am optimistic that there is enough support in the House and the Senate to get a solution that will stop this massive increase in premiums for 22 million Americans, and that will consist of something like the senator outlined or that I put forward with my bill with Sam Liccardo to fix it. But we need a temporary extension with reforms in order to control costs and fight fraud. And then we can work on the bigger issues that are causing health insurance costs to spiral out of control in this country. Now, it’s absolutely unacceptable that we’re now going to miss the deadline of the end of this year, but it is definitely not too late. It’s better late than never. And so there are a very large group of us that are committed to working out a solution. When Congress reconvenes in the new year, and we just need to make sure that our leadership on both sides hears that message loud and clear, that the American people are asking for a solution here. And that means we need to compromise. No side is going to get everything they want here, and we can’t insist on that level of rigidity when you have 22 million people whose quality of life and quality of health is at stake.”
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