bill<\/a>\u00a0introduced Monday does away with the individual mandate, but maintains coverage for people with pre-existing conditions. It also allows children to stay on their parents\u2019 insurance plans until the age of 26.<\/p>\nThe plan would replace the income-based subsidies the law provides to help millions of Americans pay premiums with age-based tax credits that may be less generous to people with low incomes. Those payments would phase out for higher-earning people.<\/p>\n
The bill would continue President Barack Obama\u2019s expansion of Medicaid to additional low-earning Americans until 2020. After that, states adding Medicaid recipients would no longer receive the additional federal funds the statute has provided.<\/p>\n
More significantly, Republicans would overhaul the federal-state Medicaid program, changing its open-ended federal financing to a limit based on enrollment and costs in each state.<\/p>\n
Critics of the individual components of the plans that have been floated in recent weeks claim the policies espoused by Republican lawmakers could result in millions of people losing access to insurance they received under the Affordable Care Act.<\/p>\n
While the GOP plan largely keeps protections for pre-existing conditions in place, the bills would also allow insurers to charger higher premiums to those who allow their coverage to lapse.<\/p>\n
The draft bills, which are currently in \u00a0two House committees,\u00a0go on to eliminate penalties for Americans who fail to purchase health insurance.<\/p>\n
House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., said the bill would \u201cdrive down costs, encourage competition, and give every American access to quality, affordable health insurance.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThis unified Republican government will deliver relief and peace of mind to the millions of Americans suffering under Obamacare,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
But if Republicans appear to have preliminarily achieved their goal of coming up with a plan to replace the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, with a more conservative healthcare policy, some in their caucus say the draft plan doesn\u2019t go far enough.<\/p>\n
On Monday night, Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., who opposes income-based tax credits, tweeted, \u201cStill have not seen an official version of the House Obamacare replacement bill, but from media reports this sure looks like Obamacare Lite!\u201d<\/p>\n
The Republican tax credits \u2014 ranging from $2,000 to $14,000 for families \u2014 would be refundable, meaning even people with no tax liability would receive the payments. Conservatives have objected that that feature creates a new entitlement program the government cannot afford.<\/p>\n
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, wouldn\u2019t rule out changes in the measure by his chamber, where significant numbers of moderate Republicans have expressed concerns that the measure could leave too many voters without coverage.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe House has the right to come up with what it wants to and present it to the Senate by passing it. And we have a right to look it over and see if we like it or don\u2019t,\u201d Hatch told reporters Monday night.<\/p>\n
And shortly before the bill was unveiled, four GOP senators released a letter to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., in which they complained\u00a0that an earlier, similar draft of the measure \u201cdoes not provide stability and certainty for individuals and families in Medicaid expansion programs or the necessary flexibility for states.\u201d<\/p>\n
Courthouse News<\/a> – The Associated Press contributed to this report.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(Courthouse News)\u00a0– 3\/6\/17 – House Republicans released draft\u00a0legislation Monday night to repeal the federal health care law\u00a0and replace it with a new regime built upon refundable\u00a0individual tax credits and grants to help states shape their own plans. House committees planned to begin voting on the 123-page bill on Wednesday, launching what could be the year\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18515,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18514","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-breaking","last_archivepost"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18514","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18514"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18514\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18517,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18514\/revisions\/18517"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18515"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18514"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18514"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18514"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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