And deductibles for millions of income americans , whobuy buyincome americans, who insurance on the marketplace. Our legislation will be based on believe hearings, and i i am chairman of that committee, and senator murray is the ranking democratic member. These hearings will be bipartisan, and they were remarkable in this sense. They engaged nearly 60 senators from both Political Parties and extensive discussions. Without only have the four hearings, which involved the 23 members of our health committee, but we invited any other senator who wished to comment to come to a Committee Meeting ahead of time to meet the Insurance Commissioners and others who were testifying, and 37 did. We have extensive participation by 60 members of the United States senate through Court Hearings and a variety of Committee Meetings in the process that developed this legislative proposal that senator murray and i have agreed upon. According to witnesses in our hearing, according to the Congressional Budget Office and Congress Joint Tax committee, without these reductions, premiums will rise, the federal 194will increase by billion over 10 years and up to 16 million americans may find themselves living in counties where no Company Sells insurance in the individual market. Yourself, a 45yearold songwriter in tennessee who loses a job has three kids, goes out into the individual market, and finds that she cannot buy Health Insurance because no company is offering it because we did not act. Those are the consequences we are talking about. Businesses also testified that forway to lower costs consumers is to give states more the affordablen care act now allows Health Insurance plans gives consumers more choices. We have limited our proposal to these two things. First, two years of temporary costsharing payments, and second, amendments that will give states meaningful flexibility in using section 1332, socalled innovation language, that is already a part of the Affordable Care act. The problem with the waiver is, while it is designed to give the opportunity for donation, it was very restrictive and limited the numbers of opportunities that states could use. Somebody, you jive anywhere you want to in the United States as long as you end up in new york or in national or in birmingham, alabama. It gives states more flexibility and offers more free choices. There are of course many other good and useful ideas that will improve laws for regulating Health Insurance. There are many on the republican side and many on the democratic side. They are probably ideas that both of us would agree on. Congress has been stuck for seven years seven years in a partisan stalemate over the Affordable Care act. Most of that stalemate is about the individual Insurance Market. Most people get their insurance from the government, medicare and medicaid. Most of the rest of the people get their insurance from their employer, on the job command that is 50 , 60 of americans. So only 6 of americans get their insurance on the socalled individual market. Less than 600,000 people in tennessee, but every single one of them is important. Every single one of them is to fight about skyrocketing premiums in the market and about the possibility that they might not be able to buy insurance at all in the market if we dont act. So we concluded that the best course would be to take this limited, bipartisan first step that would avoid the chaos that could occur during 2018 and 2019, that premiums continue to skyrocket, and millions of americans find themselves without a way to purchase Health Insurance. Once we complete this limited first step, we can take a second and a third step. I want to undersell this proposal rather than oversell it. Significant advantages in terms of the cost sharing , which make it more likely that premiums will stabilize and 2018 and actually go down in 2019. It has significant advantages in changing the law so that states will have more flexibility in offering choices, which is another way to lower costs. But it is only a limited first step. Senator murray and i hope that by the end of the week, we can convince Senate Leadership senator mcconnell and senator schumer to support a significant number of republican and Democratic Senators. We hope the senate will pass legislation, the house will agree to it, and that the president will sign it. During the last couple of days, i have had encouraging discussions with President Trump , who called me on two different occasions, encouraging me to work with senator murray to come to a bipartisan agreement. For thateful to him encouragement, and im grateful to her for her patients in working on this so diligently for such a long period of time. I think one other thing senator murray and i can agree on is that we hope that our next legislative assignment is easier than this one. I think we both also agree that the sooner we act, the better, so that americans will have the premium the benefit of lower premium costs and the peace of mind of knowing they will be able to buy insurance for themselves and their families. I would like to say to the chair, to senator murray, that i asked for 10 minutes to speak, and i asked for 10 minutes for her following me, so i am about finished, and when i am through, she has the floor, according to my request. Consent to place into the senate at this point in my remarks a brief summary of the agreement that senator murray and a half. And i have. Without objection. Sen. Alexander mr. President says it repeatedly over the past that the chairman and Ranking Member come to an agreement, but that is not really enough, because our real to find ad is consensus among a significant number of republicans and a significant number of Democratic Senators that will cause this to be inactive, that will cause the senate to pass it and the house to pass it and the president to sign it. In my opinion, we would not have come to an agreement ourselves unless we thought that that was likely. I wont go into the specific provisions that are in this except to briefly summarize them. Make the group of them section 1332 innovation waivers work by giving more workforce in ability. Example,mpshire, for helping to pay for the cost of the Affordable Care act waiver, and this will allow them. In maine, for example, the state is applying for a waiver. The waiver has been approved, but the use of the funding has not been approved. Alaska, for example, oklahoma, iowa all have waivers in line that they would like to submit to give a greater variety of choices in their state and hopefully lower premium costs. But it is too restrictive in the current conditions. About the only sort of waiver that the current director of the senate of medicare and Medicaid Services can approve is the alaska type waiver, which is a good idea, for alaska to take insurance plans, which helped sick of, and then used the subsidies to pay for 85 of the cost of the funds. Main did that on its own a few years ago. We have streamlined the approval process for those waivers so that that can be done more easily. I will emphasize that a number of reasonable while they are limited proposals, cannot be done in a budget reconciliation process. They would have to be done with 60 votes. The proposal also includes what ,e call a new proper plan catastrophic insurance for all ages. Patient seek protections for preexisting conditions, etc. , and still keeps the Health Benefits. We allow someone who is healthy and young, for example, to pay a higher deductible and lower premium if that is what they choose to do. We directly department of health aheadman services to go and write regulations to encourage Health Insurance context. We compromised on the outreach funding and agreed that we will spend about twice as much or more than President Trump wanted to spend, but we will do most of that by grants to the state. And of course we can agree on two years of funding for the cost payment. Finally, i would say that if we do not do this, according to the Congressional Budget Office, joint tax committee, and cms, premiums next year will increase 20 . It will be a 194 billion increase in federal debt within 10 years, and up to 6 million americans might find themselves unable to buy insurance on the individual market. In my view, this agreement avoids chaos, and i do not know a democrat or a republican who benefits from chaos. Mr. Trump for his encouragement to me and senator murray to try to succeed on this. I think senator schumer, all democratic leader, for creating an environment in which we could get to this point. Thank you, adjoining leader, senator mcconnell, for his focus on tax reform, four, despite his focus on tax reform, allowing us to get work on this. And i also think senator murray. Better partner to work on. The one thing we probably most agree on or found most difficult in 2018 commode we want to make sure that the costsharing payments go to the thefit of consumers, not consumers. I want that the senator wants that, the senator wants that, the president wants that. I believe we have language, but i wanted to be the strongest possible language. I look forward to working with senator murray over the next few days to see if we can find a consensus among republicans and democrats to present to the Senate Leadership. I hope we can then pass it, the house will pass it, and the president will sign it. I think the president. I field forward. I yield. Mr. Chairman, i want to thank the senator for his work on this. Under bipartisan discretion, in regular order, in the committee, and his determination to seeing it the point and beyond. I remember very clearly back in july when it was clear that the socalled skinny appealed it not have the votes to pass, we talked right then and there on getting to work on ways to stabilize the Health Care Market and protect patients and families from premium spikes after we spoke of the uncertainty this administration has caused. We were able to engage nearly half the senate in our hearings and conversations on the health committee, and we found that there was a lot more that we agreed on that and we disagreed on when it came to strengthening health care and controlling costs in the near term. Actions by this administration has made our work more urgent, so mr. President , i am very glad that republicans agreed to Work Together to address this, and im extremely pleased that with members on both side of the patients, andrs, advocates, we were able to reach an agreement that will help the discussion in congress on a different path than the one we have all seen for the last seven years. This agreement provides certainty on reduction payments for the next two years. It will address the administration to keep people from getting the roles that they need. It takes on very strong partisanship to offer states more flexibility to innovate in a way the Affordable Care act intended without undermining the essential Health Benefits like Maternity Care or Mental Health coverage for preexisting conditions. I am proudagreement to support, not only because of the important steps to its strength in our health care system, but because of the message is clear to get things done in this congress. As chairman all of xander said, to help patients and families committees to work on a regular order, find common ground, rather than retreating to bipartisa partisan corners. Thenow that is true because idea of an agreement between republicans and democrats on health care a few months ago seemed impossible at best, if not improbable. Thanks to the strong bipartisan work of chairman alexander and many of our members, we have been able to bridge the divide. I strongly believe our patients and families in every state across our country will be stronger if we can get this agreement signed into law. I urge my colleagues not only to support this but continue working together because there is no question we have work to do here. I want to thank chairman alexander and all the republicans and democrats who in thisn so engaged effort, and i echo his comments about what is in the bill. I agreerepeat them, but with his last comment that we both want to make sure that the payments go to consumers, and we are working on that language. Joint intent as we get this language final and put into place. So again, mr. President , thank you for this amount of time during a busy day on the floor, and i again want to thank chairman alexander and the committee for working to get this done the right way for the people in this country. Senators lamar alexander, bill cassidy, and tim kaine talked about the bipartisan agreement to help stabilize the Insurance Market this morning. We will bring you that live starting at 8 00 a. M. Eastern on cspan to. Later, senators Robert HassanMaggie Hassan and robert cspan. Org andn on cspan3. Yesterday afternoon, President Trump signaled his support for the true bipartisan workout a meeting with greek Prime Minister in the rose garden