A Very Encouraging Health Care Deal

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First: The bipartisan health care deal in the Senate, announced yesterday, is a very good deal.

It undoes two of President Trump’s attempts to sabotage the law, by reinstating reimbursement payments to insurers and by encouraging people to sign up for insurance. It also gives states some more flexibility, a longtime conservative priority. Perhaps above all, it’s a sign that some leading Republicans are finally serious about trying to improve the health care system.

The deal, John McCain said, “shows that good faith, bipartisan negotiations can achieve consensus on lasting reform.” Democratic-leaning experts were full of praise for it too, saying that, while it didn’t void all of Trump’s mischief, it was major progress. Jacob Leibenluft, a former Obama adviser, called the deal the “first concession” from Republicans that “they will own health care markets in 2018 and 2020.”

The biggest caveat: The deal — between Patty Murray, a Washington Democrat, and Lamar Alexander, a Tennessee Republican — is still just a framework. It must pass both houses of Congress and be signed by Trump.

An ugly, and close, campaign. Virginia and New Jersey are the only states to hold their governor elections the year after presidential elections, which turns the two states into gauges of a new president’s popularity.

This year in New Jersey, the Democrat — Phil Murphy, an ambassador to Germany under President Obama — is far ahead. But Virginia is another matter, and it offers a warning for Democratic overconfidence outside reliably blue areas.

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Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/18/opinion/a-very-encouraging-health-care-deal.html