Republicans have said they want to move quickly to craft a replacement plan after successfully repealing Obamacare. But it is not clear how they will pay for a key part of that replacement, tax credits to pay down health insurance.
Republicans have not released a replacement plan for repealing Obamacare. However, some Republicans have introduced legislative text that give a sense of the direction the GOP wants to go.
For instance, Rep. Tom Price, the Georgia Republican who President-elect Trump nominated to be secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, has a plan. Price’s Empowering Patients First Act includes tax credits that are pegged by age instead of income so a person who is younger would get a smaller tax credit than someone older who presumably has higher healthcare costs.
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Republicans are searching for a way to capture savings from repealing Obamacare in a piggybank they could later use to fund a replacement.
It’s not clear how or if such a maneuver would work, but if Republicans are successful, it could overcome the tricky political problem of paying for whatever health reform they try to put in the Affordable Care Act’s place.
The idea is to bankroll an Obamacare replacement that would start several years down the road with funds derived from repealing the law itself. A repeal bill Congress passed early this year, and President Obama vetoed, would have saved $516 billion over a decade, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
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Staff for House Republicans will be briefed Thursday afternoon on how to repeal Obamacare using special budget reconciliation rules that could allow them ditch big parts of the healthcare law next year.
House Budget Committee staffers will explain at a 1:30 p.m. meeting how the budget reconciliation process works, lay out how it can be used on the Affordable Care Act and answer questions, according to an invitation sent to Republicans on Monday.
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The incoming Senate Democratic leader says his party won’t help Republicans with a new health reform plan down the road if they repeal Obamacare without an immediate replacement.
Sen. Chuck Schumer, who will replace retiring Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid in January, said Republicans will have to “own” the situation if they ditch the healthcare law but don’t immediately come up with a way to replace it.
“We’re not going to do a replacement,” Schumer said of his caucus. “If they repeal without a replacement, they will own it. Democrats will not then step up to the plate and come up with a half-baked solution that we will partially own. It’s all theirs.”
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A big question facing Republicans next year is how to pass a national healthcare reform law without taking a beating on Election Day.
Obamacare has been implemented, and 20 million Americans have health insurance through the law. That means Republicans have to figure out how they will keep their promise to repeal Obamacare without angering the people who already receive coverage from the law.
It’s a critical question for the GOP, as a matter of policy and politics, and they know from beating Democrats across the country how an unpopular healthcare bill can poison a lawmaker’s re-election chances.
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Incoming Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price is now assisted, instead of annoyed, by the big, executive powers granted by Obamacare.
As Price takes the helm at HHS, he will succeed Obama appointees he had sharply criticized for taking wide latitude in implementing the Affordable Care Act.
Now that the tables have turned, and Republicans hold the White House, Price will have the ability to reverse, rewrite or do away with dozens of rules and guidance spelling out exactly how individuals, businesses, health providers, insurers and states should comply with the healthcare law’s many requirements.
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President-elect Donald Trump has selected Rep. Tom Price (R-GA), a leading critic of the Affordable Care Act, to head the Department of Health and Human Services. If confirmed by the Senate, he would play a central role repealing and replacing the ACA. Price, an orthopedic surgeon, has for years been refining his own detailed plan for health reform, the Empowering Patients First Act. It would repeal the law, but, among many other changes, would provide support for those not eligible for employer-based coverage or public programs through age-adjusted refundable tax credits. (Price also played a key role this year in developing the House Better Way proposal unveiled by Speaker Paul Ryan in June that takes the legislative process a step further.)
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Thanks to all of the issues with our vast and complicated healthcare system, any attempts at reform will require massive amounts of effort, political capital, cooperation from various public and private entities and, likely, luck. So while Donald Trump ran on a platform of “repealing and replacing Obamacare”, it might be wise to start with some small changes to the Affordable Care Act (ACA) that could still have large benefits.
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Congressional Republicans are itching to dismantle Obamacare, but a group of conservatives say the current plan to take down key parts of the law is not quick enough, and is already pushing for alternatives that completely and immediately repeal it entirely.
Republicans in the House and Senate have pointed to a repeal bill that was approved last year through a procedural move called reconciliation as a means to quickly gut the law after Trump assumes office in January. Reconciliation bills require only a simple 51-vote majority as opposed to 60 votes to break a filibuster, which means they’re a way to quickly pass a proposal in the Senate.
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President-elect Trump has made waves by saying that though he plans to repeal Obamacare, he wants to keep the aspect of it that bans coverage for those with pre-existing conditions. But this is not possible without broader changes to the healthcare system.
The pre-existing condition ban is ultimately one of the primary drivers of the premium hikes we’re seeing within Obamacare. The reason is that with insurers forced to offer coverage to anybody who applies, they incur higher medical costs, and they thus require more signups from younger and healthier people — but those signups aren’t materializing in a large enough volume to offset costs.
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