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Senate Panel to Hold Hearings on Health Insurance Reform USA Today by Michael Collins — Senators looking for ways to stabilize the individual health insurance market will hear from governors and state health insurance commissioners at their first bipartisan hearings next month. The hearings, set for Sept. 6–7, will focus on stabilizing premiums and helping people in the individual market in light of Congress' failure to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare. "Eighteen million Americans, including 350,000 Tennesseans — songwriters, farmers, and the self-employed — do not get their health insurance from the government or on the job, which means they must buy insurance in the individual market," said Sen. Lamar Alexander, the Tennessee Republican who chairs the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. "My goal by the end of September is to give them peace of mind that they will be able to buy insurance at a reasonable price for the year 2018," Alexander said.
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Bipartisan Health Care Plan Could Come in a Week The Hill by Peter Sullivan — Ohio Gov. John Kasich (R) and Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper (D) are working on a bipartisan proposal to stabilize Obamacare that they say could be unveiled as soon as a week from now. "We're getting very close," Kasich said in a joint interview with Hickenlooper on Colorado Public Radio. "I just talked to my guys today, and men and women who are working on this with John's people, and we think we'll have some specifics here. John, I actually think we could have it within a week." Kasich and Hickenlooper, members of opposing parties, have been doing a series of interviews calling for a bipartisan approach on health care to stabilize insurance markets.