Republicans are looking under every seat cushion to finance tax cuts and the political bribes that Members of Congress are demanding for their votes. One surprising potential “pay for,” believe it or not, would be repealing ObamaCare’s individual mandate.
The IRS administers the mandate, which ObamaCare euphemistically dubbed an “individual responsibility payment.” But Chief Justice John Roberts called it a tax to declare it constitutional, so a policy and fiscal nexus exists.
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Democrats are accusing the Trump Administration of “sabotaging” Obama Care by discontinuing illegal subsidies to insurers, but last week even an Obama-appointed judge in California said otherwise. The ruling deserves more public attention.
Federal Judge Vince Chhabria rejected and ridiculed a petition by 18 states to enjoin the White House from stopping cost-sharing reduction payments (CSRs) that subsidize lower copays and deductibles for consumers on the exchanges who earn less than 250% of the poverty line. “It appears initially that the Trump Administration has the stronger legal argument,” the judge noted, adding that “the emergency relief sought by the states would be counterproductive.”
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Suggestions to improve the bipartisan health care bill from Sens. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) and Patty Murray (D-WA) include: 1) Increase the threshold for requiring employers to offer health benefits to 200 full-time employees from the current 50; 2) Broaden the use of tax-advantaged accounts; 3) Add a provision creating a federal reinsurance fund to help finance care for America’s most expensive patients; 4) Loosen the existing rules to encourage growth of interstate sales of health-care policies; 5) Repeal the Independent Payment Advisory Board, a panel of appointed officials that is supposed to constrain the growth of Medicare costs.
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Here’s a strange paradox: Health-care costs have increased by an unsustainable rate of about 8.5% each year over the past decade, according to PwC’s Health Research Institute. Already, the average employer-based family health insurance plans costs more than $18,000 annually.
But Medicare spending has been relatively stable. Over the past three years, the program’s payouts to hospitals have increased by only 1% to 3% a year, roughly even with inflation. The prices paid for some core services, such as ambulance transportation, have actually gone down.
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The Affordable Care Act seems here to stay, including its incentives for health-care industry consolidation. Big Government drives bigger business. The latest evidence is CVS Health Corp.’s mooted $66 billion bid for insurer Aetna Inc., as companies look for ways to make money beyond being regulated utilities.
Insurers selling Affordable Care Act plans have a compelling new pitch: free health insurance.
When sales of plans on the law’s exchanges begin Nov. 1, a growing number of consumers around the country will be able to get coverage for 2018 without paying any monthly premium, according to health insurers and an analysis of newly available federal data.
In nearly all of the 2,722 counties included in the data, some consumers will be able to obtain free health insurance because they qualify for larger federal premium subsidies that cover the full cost of a plan, according to the new analysis.
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In the Wall Street Journal, Sens. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) and Mike Rounds (R-SD) write that their bipartisan bill is the short-term solution to reduce health-insurance premiums and avoid chaos in the individual market so 18 million Americans won’t be hurt. After eight years of ObamaCare speeches and votes but zero legislative victories, they argue that their bill actually could make conservative ideas law. It would permanently roll back some restrictions on states and allow anyone to buy a lower-cost catastrophic plan. To achieve these conservative victories, cost-sharing reduction payments should be expanded for two more years.
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Republicans returning to Washington will decide in coming days whether to embrace or set aside a bipartisan health bill that has gained traction in Congress, a decision potentially made harder by President Donald Trump’s statements praising the effort but opposing the bill itself. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) said on Sunday the bipartisan bill’s support includes all 48 Senate Democrats as well as the 12 publicly committed Republicans, enough to overcome any filibuster.
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Mr. Trump and congressional Republicans are hoping the Labor Department will identify a way to allow associations and small employers to create self-insured plans—or something similar. That change could allow them to adjust benefits and offer more affordable coverage to more people. Since the passage of ObamaCare, however, states are no longer the driving force behind most insurance mandates and regulations. Washington is. A more straightforward solution would be for Congress to change the law.
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President Donald Trump will support a bipartisan bill on health care only if it includes a series of conservative measures that Republicans sought in their failed effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act, a White House spokesman said Thursday, as two senators officially unveiled the legislation without many of those demands. In order for Mr. Trump to support such legislation, it must provide relief from the ACA’s requirement that most people have health coverage or pay a penalty, the spokesman said Thursday. It should also roll back or end the requirement that certain employers provide health coverage, the White House official said.
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