GOP releases its replacement health-care plan
Measure to replace Obama’s health care law would remove insurance mandate, Medicaid expansion
House Republicans release draft legislation to replace the Affordable Care Act, former President Barack Obama’s signature health-care law.
“It is Obamacare gone,” says House Ways and Means Chairman Kevin Brady, R-Texas. “There’s nothing left there.”
The legislation aims to phase out the ACA’s Medicaid expansion and change the law’s subsidies for private insurance. Federal support would be reduced to allow Republicans to repeal the law’s tax increases on the wealthy, insurance companies, drugmakers and others.
@mgroppe USA TODAY
House Republicans released draft legislation Monday to replace former president Barack Obama’s signature health care law, proposing to phase out the Affordable Care Act’s Medicaid expansion and change the law’s subsidies for private insurance.
“It is Obamacare gone,” House Ways and Means Chairman Kevin Brady, R-Texas, told Fox News. “There’s nothing left there.”
The bill’s details released Monday do not say how many people would have coverage compared with Obamacare. Federal support would be reduced to allow Republicans to repeal the law’s tax increases on the wealthy, insurance companies, drugmakers and others.
The bill would repeal the requirements that most people buy insurance and larger employers provide it.
It would still allow adult children to stay on their parents’ plans until age 26. The bill would not repeal the popular provision barring insurance companies from denying coverage to people with pre-existing health problems. To keep people from buying coverage only when they need it, insurers could raise premiums 30% for those jumping back into the market.
The legislation is under attack, not only from Democrats but from some Republicans who raised concerns about eliminating coverage for millions of people who got coverage under the bill’s expanded Medicaid eligibility. Some of the most conservative Republicans warned that the replacement tax credits the bill provided to help people buy insurance would be just another entitlement program.
House committees are likely to take up the legislation this week.
“We deliver on President Trump’s promise to repeal and to begin replacing,” Brady said.
States that expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act to people earning up to 138% of the federal poverty level