President Donald Trump said Wednesday that he is "supportive of" Sen. Lamar Alexander (R., Tenn.) as a person and for the role he played in reaching a bipartisan health care deal, but added that he does not support the agreement because it "bails out" insurance companies that profited from Obamacare.
Alexander and Democratic Sen. Patty Murray (Wash.) announced a bipartisan health care deal on Tuesday that would help fund a key insurance subsidy program and provide states the flexibility to bypass some requirements of Obamacare, Politico reported.
The deal would include funding through 2019 for Obamacare's cost-sharing program, which President Donald Trump cut last week. It would allow states to use existing Obamacare waivers to approve insurance plans with "comparable affordability" to Obamacare plans, Alexander said. But it would notably not allow states to duck the law’s minimum requirements for what a health insurance plan must cover.
Trump tweeted Wednesday morning that he does not back the deal, though he said he does support the process to find a short-term deal on Obamacare that could lead to a longer-term plan.
"I am supportive of Lamar as a person & also of the process, but I can never support bailing out ins co's who have made a fortune w/ O'Care," Trump wrote.
I am supportive of Lamar as a person & also of the process, but I can never support bailing out ins co's who have made a fortune w/ O'Care.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 18, 2017
Alexander sat down with Axios co-founder Mike Allen on Wednesday after he got off the phone with Trump, who called the senator to encourage him about the bipartisan health care bill. Alexander said that Trump told him that he wants to review the plan carefully but will support the bipartisan measure in the short-term.
"Trump completely engineered the plan that we announced yesterday," Alexander said. "He wanted a bipartisan bill for the short term."