{"id":16375,"date":"2025-12-07T17:31:38","date_gmt":"2025-12-07T17:31:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/cassidy-projects-optimism-on-winning-bipartisan-support-for-his-health-care-plan\/"},"modified":"2025-12-07T17:31:38","modified_gmt":"2025-12-07T17:31:38","slug":"cassidy-projects-optimism-on-winning-bipartisan-support-for-his-health-care-plan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/cassidy-projects-optimism-on-winning-bipartisan-support-for-his-health-care-plan\/","title":{"rendered":"Cassidy projects optimism on winning bipartisan support for his health care plan"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p>Sen. <a href=\"https:\/\/directory.politicopro.com\/member\/66858\" data-person-id=\"66858\">Bill Cassidy <\/a>(R-La.) said he planned to present Republican leadership with his health care plan as soon as Sunday night, predicting that the divisive proposal to put money directly in Americans\u2019 health savings accounts could clear the 60-vote threshold needed to pass in the Senate.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe&#8217;re working to deliver to Leader Thune and Speaker Johnson a plan, which I think could get 60 votes, which gives the American people the power, and they can choose a lower premium and an HSA,\u201d he said in an interview on \u201cFox News Sunday\u201d with host Shannon Bream. \u201cWe&#8217;re working on that. And I&#8217;ll give them a piece of paper probably by e-mail tonight.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Cassidy is pushing for congressional leadership to advance his health care plan, which encourages Americans enrolled in Obamacare to switch to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/live-updates\/2025\/11\/17\/congress\/cassidy-fund-hsas-trump-aca-subsidies-00655213\" target=\"_blank\">lower-premium, bronze-level plans<\/a> with the hope that they would be able to afford higher out-of-pocket health care costs with new funding in their HSAs.<\/p>\n<p>But the proposal faces skepticism from Democrats and health policy experts, who <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/news\/2025\/11\/19\/cassidys-obamacare-plan-will-not-lower-skyrocketing-premiums-democrats-and-policy-experts-say-00660894\" target=\"_blank\">caution that it would do too little<\/a> to help consumers facing skyrocketing premiums \u2014 merely shifting who they&#8217;d pay when \u2014 as health care subsidies are set to expire at the end of the year if Congress doesn\u2019t work out a deal to extend them.<\/p>\n<p>Cassidy, who chairs the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, acknowledged: \u201cYou can&#8217;t fix everything by January 1, 2026\u201d but said the decision about whether or not to extend health care subsidies to some extent while lawmakers debate a more sprawling overhaul of Obamacare is ultimately \u201ca political decision.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Cassidy said he\u2019d been talking to Democrats about his proposal and that there was \u201cabsolute interest\u201d in bipartisan cooperation.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe may disagree on the threshold. \u2026 But if we can get to a framework where they give the American people a choice, they can stay with the policy they have with a $6,000 deductible or they can go to another policy with a lower premium and money in a health savings account for them to purchase that which they do, the rest is just political decisions,&#8221; he told Bream.<\/p>\n<p>House Speaker <a href=\"https:\/\/directory.politicopro.com\/member\/242539\" data-person-id=\"242539\">Mike Johnson<\/a> was set to huddle with Republican leaders on Blue Light News this weekend as he races to finalize a plan ahead of Tuesday\u2019s GOP conference meeting.<\/p>\n<p>Johnson <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/live-updates\/2025\/12\/04\/congress\/johnson-house-gop-health-care-plan-00676661\" target=\"_blank\">told POLITICO last week<\/a> he hopes to schedule a vote on a health care package before the end of the year, but House Majority Leader <a href=\"https:\/\/directory.politicopro.com\/member\/59655\" data-person-id=\"59655\">Steve Scalise<\/a> was noncommittal on a timeline.<\/p>\n<p>House leaders are considering pulling from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/news\/2025\/12\/06\/obamacare-plans-schumer-trump-congress-00679712\" target=\"_blank\">an array of GOP proposals<\/a>, including a bipartisan pitch for a one-year extension of the subsidies led by Reps. <a href=\"https:\/\/directory.politicopro.com\/member\/260077\" data-person-id=\"260077\">Josh Gottheimer<\/a> (D-N.J.) and <a href=\"https:\/\/directory.politicopro.com\/member\/348387\" data-person-id=\"348387\">Jen Kiggans<\/a> (R-Va.) and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/news\/2025\/11\/21\/brian-fitzpatrick-obamacare-bill-00664635\" target=\"_blank\">a two-year extension plan<\/a> pushed by Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.).<\/p>\n<p>President Donald Trump, who has voiced support for Cassidy\u2019s health savings account plan, has opted <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/news\/2025\/12\/04\/trump-health-care-congress-00675170\" target=\"_blank\">not to wade into the details<\/a> of what should be included in a health care package.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) said he planned to present Republican leadership with his health care plan as soon as Sunday night, predicting that the divisive proposal to put money directly in Americans\u2019 health savings accounts could clear the 60-vote threshold needed to pass in the Senate. \u201cWe&#8217;re working to deliver to Leader Thune and Speaker [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16375","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-congress"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16375","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16375"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16375\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16375"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16375"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16375"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}