GOP Must End Health Care Chaos, Support Alexander-Murray

But President Trump and some Congressional Republicans are already attacking the Alexander-Murray bill, despite the fact that polls show that the American people overwhelmingly support key provisions of this bill.  At the same time, Republicans are playing politics with the health care of nearly 9 million children by failing to reauthorize CHIP, the Children's Health Insurance Program, which the GOP allowed to expire last month.

NYT Editorial: Congress, End the Health Care Chaos. You Have 9 Million Kids to Protect.

President Trump and Republicans in Congress have brought chaos to the American health care system by trying to destroy the Affordable Care Act and failing to reauthorize the Children's Health Insurance Program, which, with bipartisan support for the past 20 years, has provided care for millions of children. Over the next few weeks they can choose to set things right or to destroy them.

Senators Lamar Alexander and Patty Murray on Tuesday announced a bipartisan deal that could help stabilize the A.C.A.'s insurance markets and undo some of the damage Mr. Trump has done through administrative actions. In an ideal world, Congress would quickly pass that bill, which includes several Republican priorities, and, at the same time, reauthorize CHIP, which now covers nearly nine million children. But with Mr. Trump in the White House and feckless Republicans leading Congress, it's possible that none of this will get done, health care costs will be driven up and millions of children will be left without health insurance.

Washington Post Editorial: If Republicans kill this health-care bill, they'll prove their cowardice

BIPARTISAN NEGOTIATORS announced Tuesday that they had struck a deal to temporarily stabilize Obamacare markets. Republican Sen. Lamar Alexander (Tenn.) agreed to continue paying "cost-sharing reduction" payments that the government promised insurance companies, and Democratic Sen. Patty Murray (Wash.) agreed to relax health-market regulations a bit. Both sides of this deal contain good policy.

But House conservatives attacked it, and President Trump, who initially sounded a favorable note, soon flip-flopped.

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Killing this deal would provide more evidence the GOP has become, as former Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal (R) once put it, the stupid party, simplistic in its policy views, cowardly in its fear of the base, toddler-like in the tantrums it throws when it does not get its way.

Instead of cynically sabotaging the marketplaces and spiking families' health costs, President Trump and the GOP should join Democrats to take constructive, bipartisan action to protect Americans' care and stabilize the insurance marketplaces.