Though Sens. Patty Murray and Lamar Alexander have not yet clinched a deal, their progress could ignite a new battle over how or whether to improve the law. | Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images Alexander, Murray inching toward deal to stabilize Obamacare The failure of Graham-Cassidy has created an opening — a very small one — for moderates to push a measure to prop up the markets.

A pair of deal-making senators is inching toward a bipartisan agreement to fund Obamacare's insurance subsidies and provide some certainty to health insurance markets just two days after the GOP’s latest Obamacare repeal effort failed.

Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee Chairman Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) and ranking member Patty Murray (D-Wash.) are moving toward a plan to stabilize Obamacare in the short term after meeting on Wednesday. Though they have not yet clinched a deal, their progress could ignite a new battle over how or whether to improve the law.


"Maybe by the end of next week, we will go and hand a piece of legislation to Sen. [Mitch] McConnell and Sen. [Chuck] Schumer,” Alexander said on Thursday.

The failure of the Graham-Cassidy bill — along with the prospect that the GOP would shoulder the political blame for the instability of the Obamacare insurance markets next year — has created an opening, albeit a small one, for moderates like Alexander to push an interim measure to prop up the markets.

Many GOP lawmakers say they’re now open to such talks. But some conservatives are skeptical of doing anything that could be construed as an embrace of the Democrats’ law. And the White House, which was skeptical of a bipartisan Obamacare bill while the idea of repeal was still live, hasn’t weighed in since that effort died.

“We’ve tried it the other way a couple of times,” said Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), the No. 2 Republican in the Senate. “So we need to try to see if we can come up with a bipartisan agreement. It’s obviously been very hard.”

Negotiations between Alexander and Murray were put on hold by Republican leaders two weeks ago in favor of pushing forward with the Senate’s fourth repeal effort. With that in shambles and Obamacare repeal essentially shelved for now, the pair has resumed talks on a bill to fund an Obamacare subsidy program and provide some measure of certainty to the insurance markets.

But the thornier issue is whether members of Congress, especially on the right, would be amenable to anything that helps shore up the health law.

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“I think the House would be receptive to anything that allows … patients [to] have more options and reduce premiums, I think people would be willing to look at anything,” said Rep. Mark Walker (R-N.C.), the chairman of the conservative Republican Study Committee.

Sens. Bill Cassidy and Lindsey Graham, who authored the latest Obamacare repeal bill, say they support the idea of a bipartisan bill. Republicans have essentially put the repeal effort on hold until early 2018, when they can renew fast-track legislative authority to pass a bill with just a simple majority, rather than 60 votes.

Graham and Cassidy met with President Donald Trump in the Oval Office on Thursday to discuss the Graham-Cassidy bill, but Cassidy declined to say if the president expressed a view on when repeal should be resurrected.

“The president just wants to see things happen. He’s aware of the” problems with Obamacare, Cassidy said.

“President Trump also made clear he is willing to work with Democrats to see if we can find bipartisan, common ground and we strongly encouraged the President to do so,” Graham and Cassidy said in a statement afterward. “But like us, he shares concerns about simply throwing good money after bad in propping up a structurally unsound Obamacare system which will eventually collapse.”

Still, some Republicans are skeptical of any bill that isn't repeal.“It depends on what it is,” said House Freedom Caucus Chairman Mark Meadows (R-N.C.). “The biggest thing I see with most of what they’re talking about is just extending … [subsidy] payments. And … [subsidy] payments without a transition to something that lowers premiums is pretty much a nonstarter.”

Alexander cautioned that a deal with Murray would be meaningless unless other Republican and Democratic senators sign on. He would like to release a deal to Senate leaders that has support from a wide group of senators, with hopes of getting 60 votes on the floor.

"It's just not a matter of Sen. Murray and me agreeing,” he said. “What we're trying to do is find a consensus among a significant number of Republicans and Democrats that can actually get enacted into a result.”

The framework, as described by Democrats last week, would likely fund Obamacare subsidies — which the White House has repeatedly threatened to pull — and provide states with more flexibility to change Obamacare's requirements. Alexander declined to confirm those details.

When negotiations broke off, there was tentative agreement on two years of funding.

The deal is also expected to allow for low-cost health care plans, dubbed “copper” plans.

It’s unclear whether lawmakers could influence 2018 premiums at this late date. Insurance companies just this week signed final contracts for their 2018 plans in the Obamacare exchanges, including announcing premium rates.

“I’m assuming that if we can get a result, the insurance companies can find a way to ensure that their consumers get that benefit of what we do,” Alexander said.

Minority Leader Chuck Schumer on Thursday said both Alexander and Murray “inform me that they’re on the verge of an agreement, a bipartisan health care agreement to stabilize markets and lower premiums.”

But Murray played down that timeline, and said in an interview that while she and Alexander are “making progress,” she could not say when a deal would be completed.

