President Trump was adamant last Wednesday with Senate Republicans to keep pushing forward with their efforts to repeal and replace or simply repeal Obamacare, otherwise known as the Affordable Care Act (Aca). At the same time, the Senate Majority Leader has continued to show supporters that they will continue to, at the very least, hold a vote for a repeal bill from 2015 this week, showing signs that they are not giving up.

Trump could knock insurers while they're down

Last week saw more defeats for Republicans to push their bills as they were unable to get the votes for them.

But other Republicans are also beginning to submit to bipartisan efforts to at least try to fix the problems with the ACA. During the President's meeting with Senate Republicans, he said that they were close to fulfilling their seven-year promise to the American people. But it's also been suggested that Trump might have another option which is perfectly "Trumpian" should he decide to use it. That option is to simply sabotage Obamacare by withholding subsidies promised to those insurance providers.

It's already been reported that those insurance providers have been "rattled" due to the uncertainty in the exchanges. In fact, the consistent headlines of Republican efforts to try and kill Obamacare has caused many of them to take their chances and bail out.

But at the same time, many of them have also joined the market and even expanded their coverage. One report by Reuters titled: "Senate Republicans reluctantly consider bipartisan health care talks," said that the Trump administration would continue making those subsidy payments through August but that there is uncertainty passed that.

Republicans playing the waiting game?

Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn (R-TX.) has said in many interviews about working with Democrats would mean that they would end up "bailing out" insurance companies. A source of disagreement with a bipartisan effort is that Democrats would fund the subsidies, but Republicans say that there should be reforms to accompany such a bailout.

For instance, the Children's Health Insurance Program which is part of the federal Medicaid insurance program called CHIP will need reauthorization after it expires on Sept. 30. This would be yet another hurdle for Congress to overcome as any bills to provide those subsidies would reportedly need 60 votes. Currently, there's little to suggest that most Republicans are willing to be flexible in how they're going to work with Democrats.
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