OVERNIGHT HEALTHCARE: House, Senate GOP ‘very close’ to ObamaCare backup plan

Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) said Tuesday that House and Senate Republicans are closing in on a backup plan for ObamaCare subsidies that they will release if the Supreme Court cripples the healthcare law this month. 

Barrasso, who is leading the main Senate planning effort, said that the plan would include some kind of temporary assistance for the 6.4 million people who could lose subsidies in the case of King v. Burwell. 

“We have worked on legislation in both the House and Senate,” Barrasso said at a Republican leadership press conference. “We’re coming very close together on that. We’ll bring that out after the Supreme Court makes a ruling, and it does protect those people who felt that they were following the law even though the president wasn’t actually following the law. So we do want to help protect them in this transition.”

{mosads}A range of Republican plans have offered conflicting answers on the question of temporary assistance. Rep. Tom Price (R-Ga.) last month came out against a plan from Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) that would temporarily keep ObamaCare subsidies flowing. A Wall Street Journal op-ed in March from Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and two other chairmen heading the House’s main working group was silent on the question of temporary assistance. 

Barrasso told a small group of reporters after the press conference that for the main Republican plan, “language has been drafted and will be able to be fine-tuned based on the results of what the Supreme Court rules.”

Asked if that language includes temporary assistance, Barrasso said, “temporary, yes.”

He would not reveal exactly what kind of temporary assistance the bill includes.

Johnson has proposed extending the ObamaCare subsidies that already exist, while others like Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.) have instead proposed a system of new tax credits. Read more here.   

OBAMA MAKES PLEA TO KEEP HEALTHCARE LAW: President Obama on Tuesday delivered an emotional appeal for his hard-fought healthcare law just weeks before it could be dealt its biggest legal setback to date.

In a half-hour speech to the Catholic Health Association on Tuesday, Obama decried the “ceaseless, endless partisan attempts to roll back progress.”

Obama’s speech – his longest address focused on healthcare in more than a year – did not specifically mention the looming court case, though it was clearly on his mind.

“It seems so cynical to want to take coverage away from millions of people, to punish millions with higher costs of care and unravel what’s now become part of the fabric of America,” he told the crowd of ObamaCare supporters.

Aligning with Obama’s speech, the White House rolled out a new website dedicated to healthcare reform that features more than 30 testimonials from people who benefited from the law. Read more here.

ANOTHER WIN FOR TEXAS’S STRICT ABORTION LAW: Another federal appeals court on Tuesday agreed to uphold major pieces of Texas’s controversial abortion law.

The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals allowed the state to move forward with two key requirements — that abortion providers must seek admitting privileges to nearby hospitals and that facilities must be upgraded to meet the standards of an outpatient surgical center.

The Center for Reproductive Rights, which represented the plaintiffs in the case, condemned the ruling, warning that it would put “all but seven abortion clinics” in Texas at risk of closing. Read more here. 

Wednesday’s schedule

The House Ways and Means Committee will hold a hearing on ObamaCare and the HHS budget request for next year.

The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee will hold a hearing on “health information exchange.” 

State by state

NYC officials want high sodium warning on labels 

Medicaid mystery holds up Senate budget in North Carolina  

What we’re reading

Aging doctors prompt calls for competency tests at AMA meeting 

The states that thwarted ObamaCare have left people in the dark about the law 

The glaring contradiction at the heart of GOP’s ObamaCare plans 

What you might have missed from The Hill

Health spending projected to slow next year

Senate Dems rebuke GOP’s over-the-counter birth control bill

Please send tips and comments to Sarah Ferris, sferris@digital-staging.thehill.com, and Peter Sullivan, psullivan@digital-staging.thehill.com. Follow on Twitter: @thehill, @sarahnferris, @PeterSullivan4