Repeal and Replace – Law Street https://legacy.lawstreetmedia.com Law and Policy for Our Generation Wed, 13 Nov 2019 21:46:22 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=4.9.8 100397344 What’s Next in the Republicans’ Effort to Repeal and Replace Obamacare? https://legacy.lawstreetmedia.com/blogs/politics-blog/republicans-effort-repeal-obamacare/ https://legacy.lawstreetmedia.com/blogs/politics-blog/republicans-effort-repeal-obamacare/#respond Wed, 26 Jul 2017 18:44:58 +0000 https://lawstreetmedia.com/?p=62373

Short answer: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

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Image Courtesy of Pierre-Selim; License: (CC BY-SA 2.0)

And the beat goes on: Republicans on Tuesday voted–with a tiebreaking assist from Vice President Mike Pence–to move forward and debate health care legislation. Next up in the seven-year Republican crusade against Obamacare: hours of debate, possibly dozens of amendments, and, eventually, a floor vote. But the ultimate trophy of repealing and replacing the Affordable Care Act with a Republican-backed alternative remains elusive. Here is what comes next:

Debate then Vote-o-Rama

With the 51-50 vote Tuesday night on the motion to proceed, Senate Republicans are in for a long couple of days. First, they will debate for dozens of hours the various versions of the bill that have been proposed in the House and the Senate. Senators will also debate what will likely amount to dozens of amendments.

A so-called “vote-o-rama” will commence after the debate. Lawmakers from both parties will be permitted to introduce amendments to the health bill–Democratic aides have hinted the party will flood Republicans with amendments to trip up their efforts. Each amendment will be allotted one minute of debate before a vote, and the entire process can go on as long as is needed.

Option 1: Repeal and Replace

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has been leading the repeal-and-replace charge over the past seven years, and it falls to him to corral his fellow Republican senators to agree on a bill. McConnell’s ideal scenario would be to repeal Obamacare and replace it with a health law that suits Republican priorities.

But the majority leader has so far struggled to align moderate GOP lawmakers and the Senate’s most conservative members behind a single bill. Several Senators have stated their opposition to prior health care legislation either because of Medicaid cuts or its insufficient conservative bona fides. McConnell scored a small victory with Tuesday’s motion to proceed vote, but can he rally enough of his troops to agree on a common strategy?

The first attempt at passing comprehensive legislation failed on Tuesday evening, as nine Republicans broke ranks and opposed the Better Care Reconciliation Act (BCRA) by a 43-57 margin in a crucial procedural vote. That bill was Republicans’ primary choice to repeal and replace Obamacare and included two amendments to try to reconcile the party’s disparate corners.

The first, introduced by Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH), would add $100 billion to a stability fund to help offset slashed Medicaid funds. A second amendment, introduced by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), would allow insurers to sell pared down plans as long as they concurrently sell more comprehensive plans that meet certain Obamacare requirements. Further votes on various versions of the BCRA or alternative bills could happen later this week.

Option 2: Repeal Only

A number of Republican Senators have already stated they will not support a repeal bill in the absence of replacement legislation. As early as Wednesday afternoon, a vote could be held on a repeal bill similar to one vetoed by President Barack Obama in 2016. According to the Congressional Budget Office, that bill would lead to 32 million more uninsured Americans within 10 years.

Another idea that has been floated is known as a “skinny repeal,” which would eliminate a few of Obamacare’s provisions while still leaving intact others. The narrow repeal would get rid of Obamacare’s individual and employer mandates, which required individuals to have health insurance coverage and employers to provide insurance or pay a penalty. It may also repeal Obamacare’s medical device tax. It’s possible that the “skinny repeal” bill could dramatically change when the House and Senate meet to reconcile each chamber’s respective bills.

The road ahead is still long and filled with potentially unbridgeable divides. Immediately following Tuesday’s vote, a number of Republicans suggested they would not support a bill that is not significantly different than what has already been presented.

Sen. Dean Heller (R-NV) said: “If the final product isn’t improved for the state of Nevada, then I will not vote for it; if it is improved, I will support it.” And Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), who returned from his week-long absence on Tuesday to cast a “yea” vote on the motion to proceed, said: “Asking us to swallow our doubts and force it past a unified opposition–I don’t think that’s going to work in the end, and probably shouldn’t.” McCain, who was recently diagnosed with brain cancer, said it “seems likely” the effort would fail.

Alec Siegel
Alec Siegel is a staff writer at Law Street Media. When he’s not working at Law Street he’s either cooking a mediocre tofu dish or enjoying a run in the woods. His passions include: gooey chocolate chips, black coffee, mountains, the Animal Kingdom in general, and John Lennon. Baklava is his achilles heel. Contact Alec at ASiegel@LawStreetMedia.com.

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One Question That Will Help You Understand the Republican Health Care Bill https://legacy.lawstreetmedia.com/blogs/politics-blog/one-question-republican-health-care-bill/ https://legacy.lawstreetmedia.com/blogs/politics-blog/one-question-republican-health-care-bill/#respond Thu, 22 Jun 2017 21:02:37 +0000 https://lawstreetmedia.com/?p=61612

While the bill is particularly complicated, asking one question might clarify things.

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"President Trump With Republicans Following the House Passage of the American Health Care Act" courtesy of White House; License: Public Domain

Senate Republicans released their version of a bill to overhaul the health care system on Thursday. In general, the Senate version looks a lot like the version passed by the House in May with some important tweaks–notably, it includes steeper cuts to the Medicaid program in the long-term and changes the tax credit system to be a less generous version of the one currently in place. While it’s easy to get stuck in the details of these tweaks, arguably the best way to evaluate the bill is to look at its effects on taxing and spending. It may be most prudent to ask one question: should we offset tax cuts for the rich and businesses by cutting spending on the poor and working class?

The tax cuts in the American Health Care Act, or AHCA, amount to about $660 billion over 10 years and would be paid for, and then some, largely by slashing more than $800 billion in spending on Medicaid–the insurance program that provides health care to America’s most vulnerable, including children, the elderly, people with disabilities, pregnant women, and the poor. Although it would direct several billions of dollars to funds that help stabilize the individual insurance markets, that funding will end in 2026 while the changes the Medicaid will be permanent.

To understand current Republican proposals, it’s worth taking a minute to look at the law they seek to “repeal and replace.” The Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, included a number of new taxes designed to help pay for new tax credits and a large expansion of the Medicaid program. The tax credits subsidized the cost of premiums for working class people who can’t get health insurance from their employer and the Medicaid expansion gave states funding to cover people living near the poverty line.

While the Affordable Care Act sought to raise taxes in order to increase insurance coverage, the American Health Care Act seeks to cut taxes, leading to a large reduction in the number of people with health insurance. According to the Congressional Budget Office, a non-partisan agency tasked with analyzing the effects of new legislation, the bill that passed the House would have increased the number of people without health insurance by 23 million by 2026. Although we will not have the updated projections for the Senate version until next week, that number is not expected to change very much.

The Senate version of the AHCA would undo the Medicaid expansion, phasing out the additional federal funding, and would reduce the value of the tax credits for most Americans who are currently eligible for them. In addition to ending the Medicaid expansion, the Republican bill would fundamentally restructure the Medicaid program by instituting a cap on the amount of funding per person enrolled. This new system would shift the burden of cost increases from the federal government–which currently covers a fixed percentage of all costs–to states and would amount to a significant reduction in the projected spending on the program in the long term. Medicaid is the country’s largest health insurance program, covering 20 percent of all Americans, including 30 percent of adults with disabilities, 60 percent of children with disabilities, 49 percent of births, 64 percent of all nursing home residents, and 76 percent of poor children.

For a more in-depth look at what the bill that passed the House would do to Medicaid, check out this article.

So who would benefit from the bill’s tax cuts? The AHCA would get rid of about 14 different taxes that target a broad range of groups, from high earners to indoor tanning companies. It would also slash some of the taxes put in place by the Affordable Care Act to target industries that stood to benefit from the coverage expansion, like medical device manufacturers and prescription drug makers. One of the most notable taxes was the one on investment income for individuals earning more than $200,000 per year and couples earning $250,000 and up per year. All of these taxes would be repealed, leading to a significant windfall for the wealthiest Americans. The Tax Policy Center estimated the net effects of the House bill and found that people with incomes greater than $200,000 would see their tax burden decrease by $5,640 on average, while the spending cuts would mean that the lowest income Americans would be hurt the most.

It’s also worth noting that the bill would repeal what’s known as the individual and employer mandates. The individual mandate requires people to maintain health insurance or pay a penalty at tax time. The employer mandate imposes a similar penalty on companies with a minimum number of full-time workers but do not offer health insurance to employees. Republicans have strongly criticized these penalties, which have been one of the driving forces behind the effort to scrap the Affordable Care Act.

There are a number of important differences between the House version and the Senate version of the Republican health care bill, which we will undoubtedly hear about during the coming debate. It also seems likely that changes will be made in the short period before Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell rushes the bill to the Senate floor for a vote. While it’s important to understand how these changes will affect people, taking a broader look at a very complicated bill might be the easiest way to make an assessment of it. If you think that taxes on businesses and the wealthy are too high and you don’t mind seeing an increase in the number of people without health insurance, then you’ll most likely support this bill. But if not, you may want to call your senator.

Kevin Rizzo
Kevin Rizzo is the Crime in America Editor at Law Street Media. An Ohio Native, the George Washington University graduate is a founding member of the company. Contact Kevin at krizzo@LawStreetMedia.com.

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How the American Health Care Act Plans to Dramatically Change Medicaid https://legacy.lawstreetmedia.com/issues/health-science/ahca-changes-medicaid/ https://legacy.lawstreetmedia.com/issues/health-science/ahca-changes-medicaid/#respond Mon, 08 May 2017 13:51:05 +0000 https://lawstreetmedia.com/?p=60540

The bill would dramatically change the safety net program.

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"Department of Health & Human Services" courtesy of Sarah Stierch; License: (CC BY 4.0)

As the American Health Care Act works its way through Congress, much of the debate has recently focused on issues like health insurance regulation. While that debate reflects important issues, like protections for people with pre-existing conditions, there is another part that would arguably have even larger consequences: the proposed cuts and changes to Medicaid. The AHCA would fundamentally change the funding structure for the safety net program and could have wide ranging effects on millions of Americans who rely on Medicaid for their health care. Read on for an overview of what’s in store for the program that provides insurance to nearly 20 percent of the country.


Who is Affected

Medicaid is the largest health insurance program in the country, which combined with the related Child Health Insurance Program (CHIP), covered nearly 75 million people as of February. Medicaid covers a diverse group of people including low-income individuals and families, people with disabilities, and the elderly.

The video below explores what the Medicaid program is and how it is paid for:

To understand the scope of the proposed changes to Medicaid in the American Health Care Act, it’s important to look at how the bill it’s intended to repeal and replace–the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare–changed health insurance coverage in the first place. Generally speaking, the Affordable Care Act sought to increase insurance coverage by expanding the Medicaid program–through both increasing outreach and eligibility–while also creating regulated insurance marketplaces and providing subsidies to make health insurance more affordable.

The Medicaid expansion was directed at the lowest income Americans, specifically, people living below 138 percent of the federal poverty level, while insurance subsidies targeted those who were slightly better off but would still have difficulty paying for health insurance, namely those with incomes below 400 percent of the federal poverty level. Regulations also ensured that individuals could buy insurance on public exchanges and that prices couldn’t vary much according to an individual’s characteristics like age, sex, or health status, which was another way to expand coverage to those who were either priced out of the market or denied insurance outright.

While several components of the ACA sought to lower the rate of uninsured Americans, the Medicaid expansion played the largest role in achieving that goal. The AHCA includes important changes for insurance subsidies and regulation–the proposed cuts and changes to Medicaid are considerably larger. The Congressional Budget Office analyzed the effects of the AHCA in March after it was initially introduced and found that overall, the law would reduce the number of people with health insurance by 24 million within 10 years. The biggest chunk of that decrease, 14 million, would come from the proposed changes to Medicaid. While the law would not technically take people’s insurance away from them–states would have to make difficult decisions about enrollment and eligibility–it would amount to a large cut in federal spending on the program. In total, the CBO estimates that the bill would lead to an $839 billion decrease in federal Medicaid spending over the next 10 years.

The AHCA includes two primary changes to Medicaid that would lead to a significant reduction in people enrolled in the program. First, the bill would phase out the ACA’s Medicaid expansion, decreasing the number of people that states would get a high percentage of federal matching funds to cover. Second, it would change the program’s funding model from an open-ended commitment to an amount per enrollee that gradually increases over time.


Ending the Medicaid Expansion

The Affordable Care Act offered states matching funds to insure a large number of people newly eligible for Medicaid. A 2012 Supreme Court decision made the Medicaid expansion optional at the state level, and since then, 31 states and the District of Columbia have chosen to take the federal funds. At first, the government would pay the full cost of insuring these newly eligible enrollees, but over time the government’s share would drop, and by 2020, it would cover 90 percent of the cost of coverage. The matching rate for the enrollees who gained coverage from the expansion is actually higher than the traditional matching rate that states have historically received for those who were already eligible.

The American Health Care Act plans to unwind the Medicaid expansion starting in 2020. While the plan will end up with an estimated 14 million fewer people on Medicaid relative to current law, the AHCA’s passage will not technically take health insurance away from these individuals. Instead, it grandfathers in all newly eligible enrollees who are already in the program by December 31, 2019–allowing states to continue to receive the 90 percent fund matching for those individuals. However, for people who sign up after that point, the funding would drop to regular matching levels. This means that states will likely decide to restrict their program’s eligibility and return to standards that were in place before the Affordable Care Act.

People on Medicaid tend to cycle in and out of the program relatively quickly, which means that even though the AHCA grandfathers in expansion enrollees, coverage numbers are expected to drop fairly quickly after 2020, when states get lower matching rates. The bill would also require people on Medicaid to re-enroll every six months, rather than every year under current law, to maintain their coverage. This requirement could make it easier for people to accidentally have a lapse in their coverage, which could make those who are grandfathered in unable to re-enter the program. Based on how quickly people have cycled out of the program in the past, the Congressional Budget Office estimates that two years after the expansion ends, fewer than a third of those who were grandfathered in will remain on Medicaid. By 2024, fewer than 5 percent will remain. While the federal government won’t technically take people’s insurance away from them, the drop in funding will likely force states to make the difficult decisions surrounding eligibility and enrollment.

It’s worth noting that politics are an important variable here, so estimating coverage changes can be more of an art than a science when the actions of state legislatures are involved. It’s likely that states will react to a decline in federal funding by reducing the number of people eligible for Medicaid benefits. They may even do so preemptively, as they know that their funding will soon be reduced. Generally, the law will sharply reduce federal funding for Medicaid, but changes will be determined at the state level as they start to shoulder more of the costs.


A New Funding Model

In addition to phasing out the Medicaid expansion, the AHCA intends to dramatically change the funding system for Medicaid. Currently, Medicaid operates as an entitlement program, meaning that the federal government has an open-ended commitment to pay for a large share of the program’s costs. This means that if more people enroll in the program, as is often the case during economic downturns, the federal government continues to bear much of the increase in costs. Similarly, if the cost of medical care increases significantly, as it has been for several decades, the federal commitment increases accordingly. The entitlement nature of Medicaid has been a target of Republicans for decades; however, this is the first attempt to restructure the program while Republicans maintain control of all three branches of government.

Under the AHCA’s per capita cap system, states will get a certain amount per person enrolled. Those amounts will vary based on the different groups eligible for Medicaid to avoid giving states an incentive to shift enrollment to lower costs. For example, the system is designed to prevent states from being pressured to drop enrollment for the elderly or disabled because they may cost more than children. Each year, the per capita cap will increase along with the changes in medical care services component of the Consumer Price Index, which tracks inflation. The medical services component is known as CPI-M. The per capita system will make funding responsive to enrollment changes, but if certain Medicaid costs outpace the overall cost growth for medical services, states will need to pay the additional amount. Generally speaking, shifting to a per person allotment will amount to a significant cut in overall Medicaid spending. The Congressional Budget Office anticipates that Medicaid costs will grow by 4.4 percent per year while CPI-M will grow at just 3.7 percent annually over the next 10 years.

Additionally, the amended AHCA allows states to opt for a block grant rather than a per person cap. This would give states a grant based on their Medicaid population and would give them a considerable amount of freedom in terms of how to use that funding. Proponents say that this would allow states to experiment with funds in order to find new ways to keep costs down and deploy spending more effectively. However, critics argue that a block grant could mean states could be forced to cover fewer people or services than under the per capita cap model, and considerably more so than the current law. This is because block grants would not respond to increases in eligibility, for example due to a recession, and like the per capita model, it would not respond to cost increases that result from new or more expensive types of care. States could charge enrollees more for their care and they could cap enrollment, which could mean even those who are eligible may not be able to join the program.

How it would Change Medicaid

To illustrate how different the system would be under a per capita cap, economists at the Kaiser Family Foundation ran the numbers for Medicaid outlays from 2001 to 2011 to see how tying funds to CPI-M would affect spending. The KFF finds that federal spending would have been $195 billion below actual spending during that period, which would amount to a drop of about 7 percent. Importantly, these changes have very different consequences for the costs involved in covering the different eligible groups in the Medicaid program. For example, spending tied to CPI-M would have been 6 percent lower than actual spending when it comes to the health care costs for the disabled, but it would have been 15 percent lower for children on the program. In both of these cases, states would have had to shoulder more of the costs, but the difference is considerably larger due to faster growth in child health care costs. There is also a lot of variation between states in terms of what they pay for the average Medicaid enrollee. In fact, spending varies so much per person, that 13 states would have actually seen an increase or no change in their overall funding if it was anchored to CPI-M. However, 37 states and the District of Columbia would have seen their funding drop. And for 26 of those states, the drop relative to existing law would have been larger than 10 percent.

Subsequent amendments to the AHCA–after the initial Congressional Budget Office analysis–increased the per capita spending for the blind, elderly, and disabled to CPI-M plus one percentage point. Those changes amount to an estimated $41 billion in additional spending over the next 10 years, according to revised CBO projections. While $41 billion is a significant increase it may not be in the scope of the overall cuts–instead of reducing Medicaid spending by $880 billion, the amended law is projected to drop spending by $839 billion. While the Kaiser Family Foundation estimates mentioned above are based on CPI-M, and AHCA increases that rate slightly for certain populations, its calculations remain instructive.

Critics of the plan argue that the proposed per capita spending caps would limit states’ ability to respond to changes and could leave them on the hook for a lot of spending if certain costs grow faster than overall medical inflation. And because these caps will effectively result in spending cuts relative to the current law, it will ultimately leave states with less funding while also reducing their responsiveness to cost changes. An example of where this could be a problem is in Medicaid’s role in addressing the opioid epidemic. Many people who joined the program after the Medicaid expansion were previously uninsured and did not have access to addiction treatment. Moreover, the entitlement nature of the program allowed the program to respond to costs related to the epidemic. This is important given the program’s role in treatment–in total, Medicaid and CHIP, the related health insurance program for children, cover thirty percent of the U.S. population dealing with opioid addiction.


Conclusion

The American Health Care Act includes a number of adjustments to the current health care system, but the most wide-ranging might be the proposed cuts and changes to the Medicaid program. President Obama’s health law led to a large increase in Medicaid enrollment and the AHCA would roll much of that back while going even further to change the funding structure of the entire program. Taken together these changes amount to an $839 billion spending cut over the next 10 years and 14 million fewer people with health insurance.

Advocates of the bill argue that it will rein in Medicaid spending levels to a more sustainable course while granting states the ability to experiment and cut costs. Critics argue that it will dramatically increase the number of people without insurance by reducing federal funding for Medicaid while not offering alternatives to those who can’t afford insurance. As Senate Republicans begin to work on their own version of the health care bill, these wide ranging changes to Medicaid will likely be an important part of the debate.

Kevin Rizzo
Kevin Rizzo is the Crime in America Editor at Law Street Media. An Ohio Native, the George Washington University graduate is a founding member of the company. Contact Kevin at krizzo@LawStreetMedia.com.

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What You Need to Know About the New GOP Health Care Plan https://legacy.lawstreetmedia.com/blogs/politics-blog/gop-health-care-plan/ https://legacy.lawstreetmedia.com/blogs/politics-blog/gop-health-care-plan/#respond Tue, 07 Mar 2017 20:13:52 +0000 https://lawstreetmedia.com/?p=59375

The first draft is in.

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Image Courtesy of Gage Skidmore; License: (CC BY-SA 2.0)

After seven years of nonstop handwringing, GOP lawmakers have finally made some progress in their promise to undo the Affordable Care Act. On Monday, House Republicans unveiled two draft laws that, taken together, provide a sketch for what the future of health care in America will look like. There is still a long way to go: hardline conservatives in the House have already admonished the new GOP health care plan for not changing enough; some GOP Senators have expressed reluctance to pull back Medicaid too much; and, of course, Democrats will be pushing back hard while the Republican-controlled Congress tries to push its new health care vision. Here is what you need to know.

What Won’t Change?

Though Obamacare has been the target of much Republican ire over the past seven years, some of the law’s most popular tenets would remain unchanged under the new law. For one, young adults can remain on their parents’ health plan until the age of 26, so many millennials can breathe a sigh of relief. In addition, in what was one of the ACA’s most lauded achievements, insurers will not be able to turn a customer with preexisting conditions away, or charge them more. Critics say that retaining these Obamacare staples while overhauling other elements is untenable. Remember, the GOP plan revealed on Monday is a rough draft, sure to go through many edits before any laws are actually changed.

What Will Change?

Mainly: tax credits. Income-based tax credits will still be part of the plan, but they will be phased out over time. Instead, tax credits will shift to an age-based model. Under 30? You’re eligible for $2,000 per year. Sixty or older? You could be eligible for as much as $4,000. Families would also receive more. Another change: in lieu of the mandate–Obamacare imposed a tax on the uninsured–insurers can levy a 30 percent increase on premiums if your insurance lapses.

Medicaid would be significantly altered under the Republican plan. Essentially, the federal government would pay a per-person cash allotment to individual states. The amount given would be determined by different categories of a state’s residents: children, elderly, people with disabilities. Mirroring the Republican ethos, the plan takes a bottom-up approach (states have more flexibility) rather than a top-down one (the federal government calls the shots). In addition, Planned Parenthood could stop receiving federal funding for one year.

The changes to Medicaid could be a step too far for some Republicans. In a letter to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), four GOP Senators expressed their concerns. “We will not support a plan that does not include stability for Medicaid expansion populations or flexibility for states,” Senators Rob Portman (OH), Shelley Moore Capito (WV), Cory Gardner (CO), and Lisa Murkowski (AK) wrote.

What Happens Next?

More handwringing and, most likely, Republican infighting. In the coming days, two House committees, Ways and Means and Energy and Commerce, will review the plan. House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) has said he hopes to get the full House to vote on the bill by the April 7 recess. The legislation faces a rocky road ahead. A number of House caucuses, including the Tea Party stalwart the Freedom Caucus, have branded the new health plan as “Obamacare Lite” and “Obamacare 2.0.” Whether hardline conservatives will squeeze more of their priorities into the final bill remains to be seen.

And of course, it is highly likely that no Democrats, in the House or the Senate, will support the plan. Rep. Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic leader in the House, had this to say about the newly revealed Republican plan: “Republicans will force tens of millions of families to pay more for worse coverage — and push millions of Americans off of health coverage entirely.”

But President Donald Trump, who promised to revamp Obamacare during his first days in office, is confident the plan will pass:

Alec Siegel
Alec Siegel is a staff writer at Law Street Media. When he’s not working at Law Street he’s either cooking a mediocre tofu dish or enjoying a run in the woods. His passions include: gooey chocolate chips, black coffee, mountains, the Animal Kingdom in general, and John Lennon. Baklava is his achilles heel. Contact Alec at ASiegel@LawStreetMedia.com.

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Is the Republican Plan to “Repeal and Replace” Obamacare Over? https://legacy.lawstreetmedia.com/blogs/politics-blog/republican-plan-obamacare/ https://legacy.lawstreetmedia.com/blogs/politics-blog/republican-plan-obamacare/#respond Fri, 03 Feb 2017 17:03:47 +0000 https://lawstreetmedia.com/?p=58644

Even some Republicans are unsure.

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"Senator Lamar Alexander" Courtesy of AMSF2011; License: (CC BY 2.0)

The Republican fantasy of a two-pronged “repeal and replace” strategy for Obamacare seems to be shifting to more of a fix-it approach. “Repair” is the latest buzzword that some Republican congressmen are attaching to their strategy for dealing with the Affordable Care Act. But insurers are confused. Consumers are worried. And President Donald Trump continues to signal his commitment to repealing the law, while Republicans have yet to coalesce around a comprehensive plan. Some have even backtracked on repealing it at all.

The retreat from “repeal and replace” began in earnest last week, during a Republican meet-up in Philadelphia. Lawmakers left the gathering with fractured ideas on how to continue with their years-long promise to dismantle President Barack Obama’s signature health care achievement. Some doubled down on a wholesale demolition, no matter the lack of a follow-up plan. Others embraced a piece-meal approach: repeal Obamacare, then patch it up bit-by-bit.

But still, others seem to be doubting the wisdom of a repeal in any form. Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tennessee), one of the leading Republican voices in the GOP’s health care effort, said this at a hearing on Wednesday:

I think of [Obamacare] as a collapsing bridge… You send in a rescue team and you go to work to repair it so that nobody else is hurt by it and you start to build a new bridge, and only when that new bridge is complete, people can drive safely across it, do you close the old bridge. When it’s complete, we can close the old bridge, but in the meantime, we repair it. No one is talking about repealing anything until there is a concrete practical alternative to offer Americans in its place.

All of this uncertainty has insurers worrying that 2018 will see premiums rise and the insurance market stumble. In interviews with executives from 13 insurance companies that provide insurance in 28 states, the Urban Institute found the uncertainty is “bad for their businesses and for the overall stability of the individual market, both inside and outside the marketplaces.” Insurers expressed particular concern that scrapping the ACA’s individual mandate–which levies a tax on anyone who decides to forgo insurance–could cause healthy individuals to leave the market, leading to higher premiums.

“Respondents noted that the individual mandate is a key part of an interlocking set of policies designed to ensure a viable risk pool in the reformed individual market,” the study found. While Republicans have said they plan on retaining the most popular parts of Obamacare–like forcing insurers to cover pre-existing conditions, for instance–they have also been steadfast in their distaste for the individual mandate.

Some Republicans seem to be changing their tune, and that might be enough to derail a complete restructuring of the health law, which has provided insurance to more than 20 million Americans. On Thursday, Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), another key player in the Republican repeal effort, said: “I’m saying I’m open to anything. Anything that will improve the system, I’m for.” In the coming weeks and months, more and more Republicans might start to echo that sentiment. Insurers, meanwhile, are waiting with bated breath.

Alec Siegel
Alec Siegel is a staff writer at Law Street Media. When he’s not working at Law Street he’s either cooking a mediocre tofu dish or enjoying a run in the woods. His passions include: gooey chocolate chips, black coffee, mountains, the Animal Kingdom in general, and John Lennon. Baklava is his achilles heel. Contact Alec at ASiegel@LawStreetMedia.com.

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