Trump threatens health insurance benefits for lawmakers

President Trump ratcheted up his pressure on lawmakers to pass a healthcare plan Saturday with a threat to end key ObamaCare payments and cancel some of lawmakers’ healthcare benefits.

“If a new HealthCare Bill is not approved quickly, BAILOUTS for Insurance Companies and BAILOUTS for Members of Congress will end very soon!” Trump tweeted.

If a new HealthCare Bill is not approved quickly, BAILOUTS for Insurance Companies and BAILOUTS for Members of Congress will end very soon!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 29, 2017

{mosads}

The president was referring in the first part of the tweet to ending key payments to insurance companies under ObamaCare known as Cost Sharing Reduction (CSR) payments, which he has threatened to end before. 

The second portion of the tweet referenced congressional health benefits.

Members of Congress and many staffers were removed from Federal Employee Health Benefits structure and put into the new insurance exchanges set up by ObamaCare in 2010. 

The Office of Personnel Management under the Obama administration said members of Congress could obtain subsidized insurance through Washington, D.C.’s health insurance exchange. 

Conservative groups such as Heritage Action, which is the political wing of the Heritage Foundation, have decried the Obama-era rule. 

“Senators should finally subject themselves to the same burdens imposed upon their constituents,” Heritage Action president Michael Needham wrote in an Independent Journal Review op-ed this week.

Trump’s tweet comes after the GOP effort to fulfill their seven-year campaign promise to repeal and replace ObamaCare collapsed in the Senate this week.

Three GOP senators – Sens. Susan Collins (Maine), Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) and John McCain (Ariz.) – joined all 48 Democrats in voting down a pared-down “skinny” repeal bill.