via @learyreports
WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump has a new target: Sen. Bill Nelson and others trying to address a health care funding crisis in Puerto Rico.
“The Democrats want to shut government if we don’t bail out Puerto Rico and give billions to their insurance companies for OCare failure. NO!” Trump tweeted this morning. Last night he said, “Democrats are trying to bail out insurance companies from disastrous #ObamaCare, and Puerto Rico with your tax dollars. Sad!”
It seems Trump is referring to an effort from Nelson and Sen. Robert Menendez to address a Medicaid shortfall for Puerto Rico. The Democrats this week are pressing Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on the issue, noting that $6.4 billion in funding under the Affordable Care Act is set to run out at the end of the year, despite expectations it would last through 2019. The gap leaves Puerto Rico “facing a Medicaid cliff that will have far-reaching consequences for both the island and the continental United States,” Nelson and Menendez wrote to McConnell.
The Democrats were members of the bipartisan Congressional Task Force on Economic Growth in Puerto Rico, which issued a report in December that included a call for Medicaid funding. Sen. Marco Rubio was a member of the group and signed onto an April 7 letter urging Health Secretary Tom Price to address the Medicaid issue.
We’ve asked Rubio for comment in light of Trump’s comments.
UPDATE: As of 1:45 p.m., Rubio has not responded.
Despite what Trump says, it’s not clear Democrats are threatening to hold up a spending bill over the issue.
Rubio and Rep. Carlos Curbelo, R-Miami, are working the Territory Health Insurance Tax Relief Act of 2017, which would exempt health insurance providers in U.S. territories from paying a tax, “which has been passed on to consumers in the forms of higher premiums.”
“It is unfair to Puerto Ricans to have to pay this ObamaCare tax and endure higher premiums, only to be excluded from participating in the same health system that the rest of the United States does,” Rubio said in a news release. “As we work on the larger goal of repealing and replacing ObamaCare, this legislation would repeal the law’s costly and unfair tax on Puerto Rico and help begin the process of revitalizing the health care system on the island.”