Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-OH) told Breitbart News Saturday President Donald Trump can be the “first president in my lifetime” to lower healthcare costs with a potential deal being negotiated by the Ohio senator.
Moreno spoke to Breitbart News Saturday host Matthew Boyle as the Buckeye State conservative is working with Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) to strike a deal that would extend the enhanced Obamacare subsidies, while reforming the subsidies to crack down on rampant fraud, and lower healthcare premiums by 11 percent.
Democrats boosted the Affordable Care Act (ACA), or Obamacare, Advance Premium Tax Credit (APTC), to create the Enhance Premium Tax Credit (EPTC), through the coronavirus-era, $1.9 trillion Biden American Rescue Plan. They continued the subsidies through the so-called Inflation Reduction Act, leaving them to expire at the end of 2025, which led Democrats to stage a weekslong government shutdown.
Now, Moreno has been working to strike a deal that would pass through the Senate and the House and Trump would sign, while actually lowering costs for the American people.
“President Trump would be the first president in my lifetime to go on TV and say he lowered premiums by 11 percent for every American,” Moreno told Breitbart News Saturday.
“He would be the president that actually, finally, fixed healthcare in this country and start to end the disaster that the Democrats created,” he added.
Moreno said that the framework of the deal would:
- Extend the subsidies for two years instead of three years
- Continue the enrollment period for Obamacare to allow Americans to benefit from lower costs
- Set income caps at 700 percent so that “people that make a lot of money in this country” cannot get the Obamacare subsidies
- Establish minimum premiums to prevent fraud
- Lower premiums by 11 percent and federal spending through cost-sharing reduction payments
Moreno explained that Monday night the Senate lawmakers working on the deal will meet, to which they will distribute the framework with the Senate Republican Conference on Tuesday.
He said, “What I will not allow the American people suffer as the result of bad policy and doing nothing is unacceptable. We have to help Americans.”