A prominent Republican U.S. senator ducked into a bathroom this week to try to avoid questions about the GOP’s efforts to throw together a health care plan, The New York Times reported on Friday evening.
“Senator Tim Scott, Republican of South Carolina, was on the way to a health committee hearing this week when he was asked what his party was going to do about insurance subsidies that are set to expire, driving up the cost of care for millions of Americans and leaving millions of others uninsured,” reported Sheryl Gay Stolberg. Confronted with this, “he laughed and said: ‘Sounds like a question.’ His press secretary offered a reporter her card. Then Mr. Scott pulled a common Capitol Hill avoidance tactic: He ducked into the men’s room.”
This comes as Republicans are still arguing among themselves what plan to offer, or whether to even offer a plan at all, as an alternative to the proposed Democratic compromise legislation on extending the subsidies, which were passed to help people buy Affordable Care Act plans during the pandemic.
This issue triggered a government shutdown that lasted weeks, until Republicans promised Democrats a vote on the issue this month.
“Roughly three weeks before a set of enhanced subsidies under the Affordable Care Act expire, Republicans are scrambling to come up with a stopgap measure that would help Americans keep their coverage and possibly prevent their party from getting clobbered in next year’s midterm elections,” said the report. “President Trump, who had hinted that he might lay out a plan, has remained mum, while top Republicans in Congress are staring down the deadline with little to show for their efforts to coalesce around a proposal.”
Trump initially proposed a plan of just sending the subsidy money directly to Americans to save in individual accounts; then, he reportedly started working on an idea that would involve extending the subsidies in return for an income cap and anti-fraud measures, but delayed rolling it out as it became clear a number of Republicans in Congress weren’t on board.
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