If Republicans fail to pass a bill or weaken the Senate bill so much that it won’t make a difference, the result will be a calamity of a different kind. GOP Governors who declined to join ObamaCare’s new Medicaid will conclude that the expansion is permanent and the political pressure will rise to take the federal bribe. Medicaid costs will soar, and national Republicans will show that they’re incapable of doing what voters sent them to Washington to do.
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Republican efforts to pass health-care legislation are in jeopardy again, in part because of controversy over its potential impact on Medicaid. But the Republican reforms are more moderate, and more worthwhile, than they are getting credit for.
The CBO is exaggerating the effects of the Republican legislation on Medicaid enrollment, it’s worth putting Medicaid on a firmer footing, and any additional resources for health insurance for low earners should be directed toward enabling them to buy private coverage rather than pumped into Medicaid. On Medicaid, in short, the Republicans are on the right track.
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Senate conservatives wish the health-care bill was more ambitious on deregulation, and so do we, though the benefits of its state waiver feature are underappreciated and worth more explanation. This booster shot of federalism could become the greatest devolution of federal power to the states in the modern era.
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Top Senate Republicans are signaling that they are willing to dramatically increase funding for a special state innovation fund in order to persuade wavering moderates to support their floundering healthcare reform bill, according to sources involved in negotiations.
One Republican senator said leaders could double the amount of money in the bill’s long-term state innovation fund. The legislation, as currently drafted, dedicates $62 billion over eight years to encourage low-income people with high healthcare costs to buy insurance, according to a summary posted by the Senate Budget Committee.
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The ACA instituted, for the first time in over half a century, a tax on the value of employer-sponsored health insurance, known as the Cadillac tax. This step represented a significant shift in policy that has the potential to affect more than 150 million Americans covered by such insurance. While there are strong justifications for either repealing or reforming the Cadillac tax, policymakers should be apprised of the potential benefits and pitfalls of each approach. In this paper, we review the history of employer-sponsored health insurance and offer three options for replacing the Cadillac tax without returning to the undesirable pre-ACA status quo: 1) Eliminate the Cadillac Tax and the ESI tax exclusion; 2) Eliminate the Cadillac Tax and cap the ESI tax exclusion; and 3) Replace the Cadillac Tax and the ESI tax exclusion with income-based subsidies.
Senate Republicans and the White House have agreed to add at least $45 billion to their Obamacare repeal bill to address the opioid crisis and are near agreement on allowing consumers to use Health Savings Account money to pay for their premiums, according to people familiar with the matter.
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America faces an urgent crisis in its health-care system. Costs are skyrocketing and choices are disappearing on the individual and small-group markets. Many people now confront the real challenge of having no choice in their health coverage. This year more than 1,000 counties had only one insurer in the ObamaCare market, meaning millions of Americans had no meaningful choice. Meanwhile, the insurers that did stay in the market increased premiums for their midlevel plans by an average of 25%. Premiums on the individual market are up about $3,000 since ObamaCare was implemented.
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Minuteman Health of Massachusetts and New Hampshire announced it is withdrawing from the Affordable Care Act exchanges in 2018, leaving only four co-ops in operation. The co-op will stop writing business on January 1 and organize a new company, Minuteman Insurance Company, instead.
The company cited issues with Obamacare’s risk-adjustment program, which is the program that shifts money away from those with healthier customers to those with sicker enrollees. Minuteman Health said that the negative impact of this program had been “substantial.”
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Senate Republicans on Tuesday delayed a vote on their health-care bill until after the July 4 recess, and the timidity and opportunism of too many Senators suggest they may never get 50 GOP votes. We hope they understand that if they fail, Republicans will be entrusting their political health-care future to the brutal generosity of Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer. The idea persists in some media and GOP ranks that if the Senate bill dies, this will produce a blossoming of bipartisanship. But if Republicans fail, Democrats will have zero political incentive to cooperate except on their policy terms. Americans know that Republicans run Congress and the White House, and that they promised to do something about the problems of ObamaCare. Do Republicans really believe voters in 2018 will blame GOP failure on the President who left town two years ago?
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For decades American conservatives have sought to restore meaning to the 10th Amendment, which recognizes the states’ right to manage their affairs free from Washington’s interference. Passing the Republican Senate’s health-care bill would represent historic progress toward that goal.
Governors and state legislatures ask Washington every year for the right to receive their Medicaid funds in the form of a block grant, which would give them autonomy to manage the spending as they see fit. The Senate bill, for the first time, would allow that.
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