1.5m sign up for Obamacare plans
Panel proposes changes to tax reform plan, adding a repeal of health insurance mandate and making corporate tax cuts permanent while ending individual cuts in 2025
More than 800,000 people signed up for Obamacare individual health insurance plans in the second week of open enrollment, the US Centers for Medicare and Medicaid services said on wednesday, bringing the total number of sign-ups to nearly 1.5 million so far.
More people have signed up for OBAMACARE plans In THE irst two weeks of 2018 open enrollment than in the same time period last year.
But the Trump administration halved the 2018 open enrollment period to six weeks, slashed the Obamacare advertising budget by 90 per cent and cut funding for groups that help people enroll in Obamacare insurance.
Separately, the head of the US Senate Finance Committee proposed major changes to a Republican tax reform plan, adding a repeal of Obamacare’s health insurance mandate and making corporate tax cuts permanent while ending individual cuts in 2025.
In a statement late on Tuesday, committee chairman Orrin Hatch said the proposed changes would also slightly lower some individual tax rates and includes a repeal of the alternative minimum tax but only through 2025, when it would be reinstated.
The 226-page amendment comes as the Senate continues to craft its version of tax reform alongside the US House of Representatives, WHICH Is inalising its own bill. The two plans must be RECONCILED AND MERGED Into A inal plan that can pass both chambers before it goes to President Donald Trump to sign into law.
Hatch’s changes would end one of the more unpopular provisions in Obama’s Affordable Care Act that require Americans to obtain health insurance or pay a penalty. The nonpartisan Congressional BUDGET OFICE ESTIMATED that THE CHANGE would increase the number of uninsured by 13 million people by 2027.
“By scrapping this unpopular tax from an unworkable law, we not only EASE THE inancial Burdens ALREADY associated with the mandate, but also generate additional revenue to provide more tax relief to these individuals,” Hatch said in a statement.
Republican US Senator James Lankford on WEDNESDAY SAID THE Obamacare change was unlikely to sink the bill, given “pretty strong agreement among Republicans that we don’t like the individual mandate.”
“This was a tax intended to push people to be able buy the product, but it actually landed on people that can afford it the least,” he told MSNBC television. He added that Congress would have to re-evaluate the individual tax cut expiration in 10 years and if the economy remained strong hopefully extend it.
Several moderate Republicans, Senators Susan Collins and John Mccain whose “no” votes sank earlier healthcare efforts, expressed uncertainty on Tuesday over tying the tax bill to the healthcare provision details.
US House Speaker Paul Ryan told CNBC television on Wednesday that while the House Republican tax plan does not repeal the mandate, the House would likely Approve A inal measure hammered out with the Senate that included it.
Republicans, who control Congress and the White House but have yet to pass any major legislation, are eager for a legislative victory ahead of the 2018 mid-term elections and are pushing hard to pass tax cuts by the end of the year.
It was not immediately clear how many of Hatch’s colleagues will support the plan in the Senate, where Republicans hold a slimmer 52-48 majority than in the House.
Democrats have dismissed the Republican plans as giveaways to corporations and the wealthy that would swell THE nation’s DEICIT.