The Patient CARE Act, introduced on February 4, 2015 and sponsored by Senators Burr (R-NC) and Hatch (R-UT) and Rep. Fred Upton (R-MI), starts by fully repealing Obamacare “except for the changes to Medicare”. The replacement consists of three major components:
- Medicaid is reformed by imposing a capped per-beneficiary allotment adjusted for inflation (a less stringent form of block-granting Medicaid insofar as it automatically adjusts for changes in the number of Medicaid eligibles);
- Obamacare’s income-related subsidies are replaced with less expensive tax credits that vary by age, family status and income (disappearing above 300 percent of federal poverty level).
- The long-standing tax exclusion for employer-provided health insurance coverage is retained, but the ACA’s Cadillac tax is replaced by a functionally-equivalent cap on the amount of the exclusion ($12,000 for single and $30,000 for family coverage); workers in firms with fewer than 100+ workers would be allowed to purchase non-group coverage with tax credits.
