Room in the middle

Healthcare has been a heavily partisan issue.

That was the case when the Affordable Care Act passed in 2009, and it continued to be throughout the rest of President Barack Obama’s tenure that included repeated GOP votes to repeal. But with the most recent efforts at repeal, repeal and replace, or “skinny repeal” failing, a senator from Indiana thinks there is middle ground to be found.

U.S. Sen. Joe Donnelly said he believes there is opportunity for moderate Democrats and Republicans to work together to improve the country’s healthcare system.

Donnelly, a Democrat in his first term in the Senate, also discussed the “scourge” of opioids and other legislative issues during a brief stop Monday at The Commercial Review.

Several healthcare-related efforts in the Senate this year have failed, most recently with the “skinny repeal” coming up short by a 51-49 vote early Friday morning. Donnelly said he is hopeful last week marked an end to efforts by Republicans to “do it alone” and can lead to a bipartisan bill going forward.

“Healthcare, what I’m very hopeful is that we’re now in a position where we can work together,” said Donnelly. “That’s what I’ve tried to do. I’ve met with my Republican colleagues a number of times to put together a bill that works for Hoosiers and for our country. When we get ideas from everybody, we get better legislation.”

He added that talks are already underway to create a framework for a bipartisan bill in an effort to stabilize premiums and lower deductibles. Among the ideas Donnelly supports in such a measure are:

•Reinsurance, which would set aside a pool of money to protect insurance companies that incur extremely high costs on a particular patient. The goal is to remove some of the risk for insurance companies and thus bring premium costs down for patients.

•Cost sharing to provide regular payments of ACA funds to insurance companies. (This system is currently in place but payments are controlled by the administration, which has talked about cutting them off.)

•The continuation and implementation of programs like Health Indiana Plan 2.0, a consumer-driven model that involves health savings accounts. The state picks up the bulk of medical expenses but individuals must also pay a portion of costs.

•Insurance plans focused on coverage of catastrophic health issues. Cost of the plans would be lower in an effort to encourage younger, low-risk patients to join the health insurance pool.

If such a bill were able to make it to the Senate floor, Donnelly said he believes there would be significant support.

“There’s probably 60 (votes) or more, actually,” he said. “Once we are able to finally get it to the floor for a vote, that’s where you’ll see real big numbers for these kind of things … I know the significant support that’s out there for something moderate and common sense.”

Donnelly added that protecting current Medicaid funding is essential for rural facilities like Jay County Hospital that are already under financial stress. He said many rural hospitals would have struggled to survive under the original healthcare bill introduced this session that would have cut Medicaid funding by hundreds of millions of dollars.

Addressing the opioid epidemic, which has resulted in seven overdose deaths in Jay County in the first half of 2017, Donnelly referred to two key goals — keeping excess opioids off the market and providing additional resources to help with recovery.

He said it’s essential that doctors be stopped from prescribing too many pills, which can lead to addiction, and applauded Indiana legislation passed earlier this year that limits first-time prescriptions to seven days worth of medication.

Donnelly also noted his support for the 2016 21st Century Cures Act, which included $1 billion in funding to improve drug monitoring, accessibility to treatment and efforts in addiction prevention. He is also working on a bill with Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) to create incentives for healthcare professionals to go to work in small communities like Jay County.

“(Opioid addiction) is a scourge on our state,” he said. “It is breaking the hearts of families one after another after another. This is front and center every single day for me.”

Donnelly also touted his efforts working on legislation to improve education benefits for veterans and eligibility for the United States Capitol Police Memorial Fund following the June 14 shooting at a practice for a congressional baseball game.

His visit Monday to The Commercial Review was his lone stop in Jay County before heading to a memorial service in Wayne County. He said he had hoped to spend more time in the area but had been called back to the Senate. He was back in Washington, D.C., later Monday.

When asked to compare the current legislative session to previous years, he focused on the positive efforts being put forth by most of his colleagues.

“There’s a real commitment in the Senate … to work together. And so, that’s what a whole group of us are trying to do,” said Donnelly. “There’s always a few on the left and a few on the right who don’t want to focus on trying to get things done, but my focus is on Hoosier common sense getting things done and that’s what we’re going to continue to try to do.”