Articles on the implementation of ObamaCare.
The U.S. Treasury and Internal Revenue Service said they are extending some Affordable Care Act reporting deadlines to help companies meet the requirements. Employers will have two more months past Feb. 1 to give individuals forms for reporting on offers of health coverage and the coverage provided.
he deadlines to report this information to the IRS are extended by three months past the previous Feb. 29 due date for paper filings and the March 31 date for electronic returns, the Treasury said in a statement Monday.
A bill intended to repeal key parts of the Affordable Care Act and defund Planned Parenthood would now decrease the deficit by about $553 billion, should it become law.
The legislation would save about $318 billion without macroeconomic benefits between 2016 and 2025, according to an updated score of the bill by the Congressional Budget Office and the Joint Committee on Taxation.
Within hours of reconvening Tuesday, the GOP-led Congress will finally act to fulfill a 2010 promise to repeal and replace ObamaCare. The effort is set to begin Tuesday afternoon when the House Rules Committee meets on the repeal measure, with a full debate and vote as early as Tuesday. With the Republican-led Senate having already passed its version, GOP congressional leaders will send the measure to President Obama, daring him to veto it.
A group of health policy analysts have collaborated on a set of proposals for replacing the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and also reforming other major portions of health care delivery, such as the tax treatment of employer-sponsored health insurance, Medicaid, Medicare, and Health Savings Accounts. Because so much attention has been paid to the repeal of the ACA by those who have opposed it, we believe it is important to focus on a serious proposal that could both replace this law and provide additional measures of reform, especially to the health care entitlement programs.
We believe our reform agenda represents such a proposal. Furthermore, none of us regards the pre-ACA health care system as an acceptable alternative.
If it’s December, it must be time for a massive, one-time, all-or-nothing annual spending bill. That’s just what has become of Congress’s core function over the past decade. This year’s version includes a 2,009 page omnibus appropriations bill and a 233 page tax bill mostly extending various “temporary” tax preferences and other provisions.
Republicans have majorities in both houses, so this bill reflects their priorities on the whole. But on health care, it’s actually most interesting for what it suggests about the Democrats—some meaningful number of whose votes are after all necessary for passage.
Despite advice to shop around before selecting a plan, consumers may find that getting answers about drug coverage can be an exercise in frustration, despite a federal health law requirement that insurers provide lists of the prescription medications included in their plans.
That’s because many treatments — particularly intravenous treatments like those used in cancer, hemophilia or multiple sclerosis — are covered under a separate part of an insurance plan, not the pharmacy benefit.
On December 14, former Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius made news by calling the decisions of Kansas and Missouri to turn down the Medicaid expansion contained in the Affordable Care Act “morally repugnant and economically stupid.”
Heated political rhetoric does not alter the fact that a state’s decision to expand Medicaid involves complicated tradeoffs.
The Senate voted overwhelmingly today 65-33 in favor a $1.8 trillion package of spending bills and tax breaks, sending the legislation to President Obama’s desk for his signature. Included in the two bills are provisions trimming some of the levies that help finance ObamaCare. A tax on medical devices would be suspended for two years, a levy on health insurers would stop for a year and a tax on higher-cost insurance policies would be postponed two years until 2020.
It has been called into question whether it’s true that Sen. Marco Rubio is responsible for the provision (inserted into last year’s annual spending bill and now again into this year’s) that requires the risk-corridor program in ObamaCare to be budget neutral. Like this year’s giant spending law, last year’s omnibus bill was the result of a leadership-driven process that drew on substantive expertise from the relevant committee staffs but did not much involve most members of either house. But Rubio was without question the first and most significant congressional voice on this subject, and if he hadn’t done the work he did, the risk-corridor neutralization provision would not have been in last year’s (or this year’s) budget bill.
The House voted 318-109 to send a $680 billion tax-extenders bill to the Senate, which is expected to approve the legislation alongside the omnibus spending measure. The tax legislation, which would make permanent some tax credits and extend several others, is the product of a deal reached by Democratic and Republican leaders earlier this week.
“With this tax bill, families and businesses are going to have the long-term certainty that they need, instead of scrambling year after year to find out what’s next,” House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) told reporters on Thursday before the vote.