Senate Republicans reworking Obamacare are considering taxing employer-sponsored health insurance plans, a move that would meet stiff resistance but which would help make the tax preferences for health insurance more equal. The move could raise billions in revenue that could be used to help stabilize the fragile individual insurance market. But it could be politically risky, since it could expand the impact of GOP health proposals from Medicaid recipients and those who buy insurance on their own to the roughly 177 million people who get coverage through their employers.
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Democrats in California’s state Senate spent Thursday hemming and hawing over Senate Bill 562, the Healthy California Act. The legislation would create a single-payer health care system to cover all Golden State residents. This proposal would kneecap California’s economy and saddle millions with the life-threatening wait times, rationed care, and out-of-control costs that plague all single-payer systems. The Healthy California Program would cover all medical expenses without premiums, deductibles, or copays. Such a sweeping overhaul won’t come cheap. An analysis from the state Senate Appropriations Committee puts the cost of the plan as originally proposed at around $400 billion a year.
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The Kaiser Family Foundation asked Americans about replacing the Affordable Care Act, and 55 percent of those surveyed want the Senate to reject a bill that passed the House unless the Senate makes major changes. Joe Antos says, “Not only do Democratic respondents think that the things that are going wrong are really on President Trump’s watch and he’s responsible but most Republicans believe that, too.”