House Republican leaders began laying out components of an Obamacare replacement bill at a closed-door meeting with members on Thursday, Feb. 16. Party leaders, including chairs of key committees, proposed age-based tax credits to replace Obamacare’s subsidies, new options for Medicaid, and scrapping taxes. They also floated ideas on how to pay for the replacement plan, such as capping the tax exclusion currently offered only to employer-sponsored health plans. House members received a policy brief that outlines where legislation is headed to help them prepare for next week’s town hall meetings in their districts.
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Just 8.8% of Americans lacked health insurance as of this past September, according to the latest numbers from the National Health Interview Survey conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
But more insured people are on the hook for sizable portions of their health care costs. More than 39% of Americans younger than 65 are enrolled in a plan with a high deductible — a big increase from 2010, when 25% of people were in a high-deductible policy. Popular Republican plans to replace Obamacare rely heavily on high deductibles and health savings accounts.
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House Republicans are weighing specific reforms to Medicaid that could be included in a reconciliation measure to overhaul the Affordable Care Act.
How to deal with the federal expansion of Medicaid under the ACA is one of the main unanswered questions as Congress works to overhaul Obamacare — one that has exposed divisions between the House’s most conservative members and GOP lawmakers from states that chose to expand the federal program for low-income Americans.
Rep. Brett Guthrie (R-Ky.), the vice chairman of the Energy and Commerce Health Subcommittee, said Tuesday that lawmakers are considering what types of reforms — specifically shifting to per capita allotments or allowing states to choose block grants — could be included in a House reconciliation bill to repeal the ACA.
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While Republicans continue to grapple with plans to repeal and replace Obamacare and stabilize health insurance rates, Humana is the first major insurer to say it is dropping out of the individual market for 2018.
“Based on our initial analysis of data associated with the company’s health-care exchange membership following the 2017 open enrollment period, we continue to see further signs of an unbalanced risk pool,” said Humana CEO Bruce Broussard, on a conference call with analysts Tuesday. “Therefore, the company has decided that it cannot continue to offer this coverage for 2018.”
In the wake of the news, President Donald Trump tweeted that the insurer’s decision was another example of the failure of the Affordable Care Act, and he reiterated his plan to “repeal, replace & save healthcare for ALL Americans.”
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Following an Obama administration order, the IRS had been set to require taxpayers to indicate on line 61 on their form 1040s whether they had maintained health coverage in 2016 or paid the penalty. The IRS would have rejected returns if taxpayers failed to report their coverage status. But the IRS announced this week it would not reject returns that failed to check the appropriate ObamaCare boxes—an early indication of the administration’s efforts to provide relief from ACA mandates.
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“This year, the IRS put in place system changes [initiated by the Obama administration] that would reject tax returns during processing in instances where the taxpayer didn’t provide…information [attesting that the taxpayer had health insurance].
“The recent executive order [issued on day one of the Trump administration] directed federal agencies to exercise authority and discretion available to them to reduce potential burden. Consistent with that, the IRS has decided to make changes that would continue to allow electronic and paper returns to be accepted for processing in instances where a taxpayer doesn’t indicate their coverage status.”
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The conceit that the five major commercial health insurers will consolidate to three seems to be dissolving, as four of those insurers called off a pair of mega-mergers on Tuesday. After 18 months of courtship among the Big Five starting in 2015, the outgoing Obama Justice Department’s antitrust division sued to block the $34 billion Aetna- Humana tie-up as well as Anthem’s $48 billion acquisition of Cigna. Federal judges blocked both transactions earlier this year. Anthem had planned to appeal but on Tuesday Cigna pulled the plug after Aetna and Humana did the same.
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Republican town halls are erupting with protests as Americans fret over the future of their health insurance. But listen to Lamar Alexander for a few minutes, and you might think not a single bad thing will come of the GOP’s plan to rip apart Obamacare and stitch together a replacement.
The folksy Tennessee senator is quietly prevailing upon Republican lawmakers to take a deep breath when it comes to rewriting the health care law that controls a sixth of the American economy. His goal, in a nutshell: to reassure millions of Americans that Republicans aren’t trying to snatch away their health insurance.
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Obamacare is a proven policy failure. Congress and the Trump Administration must completely repeal the law, beginning by seizing the opportunity to accomplish as much of repeal as possible through the reconciliation process. Congress must focus on the fundamentals: equalizing the tax treatment of health insurance; restoring commonsense regulation of health insurance; and addressing the serious need for reform in Medicare and Medicaid by adopting policies that give individuals control over their health care. High quality health care means all Americans should be free to choose a health care plan that meets their needs and reflects their values. Congress must act now to repeal Obamacare and replace it with a new set of options that empower Americans, not government.
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A new poll by McLaughlin & Associates, commissioned by Hudson Institute finds that when the link is made between Obamacare’s preexisting-conditions protections and higher premiums, Americans prefer lower premiums to such protections. The poll included 36% Democrats and 33% Republicans.
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When Dave Hoppe recalls his first big health-care fight, one memory stands out. It was the summer of 1994, and Sen. George Mitchell, the Democratic majority leader, had canceled August recess to force a debate over his party’s health-care monster: HillaryCare.
Senators weren’t happy about losing their break, remembers Mr. Hoppe, who at the time was an aide. “And yet, Republican senators were lining up in the cloakroom; they couldn’t wait to get to the floor,” he says. “They knew this issue. They’d studied it. They were better informed than Democrats about HillaryCare. There was such an esprit de corps. It was energizing.”
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