President Trump told Sen. Lamar Alexander during a phone call Saturday that he likes the approach Alexander is taking on a bipartisan health care package — but only if Democrats agree to the state flexibility Alexander and other Republicans have asked for, according to a senior GOP aide.
Why this matters: Trump potentially wreaked havoc on the individual market on Thursday night when he decided to stop making cost-sharing subsidy payments to insurers (payments a court has found illegal). The issue now falls squarely in the lap of Congress, and Alexander has been working with Democratic Sen. Patty Murray to try to strike a deal that would, among other things, fund the subsidies. However, the president clearly wants to use the issue to extract something from Democrats on health care.