What the Healthcare Bill Means
As I type this, that old song from Schoolhouse Rock is running through my head: “I’m just a bill, I am only a bill…”
Last week, Senate Republicans released their proposal to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act (ACA)- the Better Care Reconciliation Act. Despite opposition from several conservative senators, it sounds like Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell still plans to bring the bill up for a vote before the July 4th recess.
The proposal is similar to the one from the House – the American Health Care Act. Here is a quick summary of some of the more important provisions:
- It expands HSAs by increasing the maximum contribution limit and allowing both spouses to make catch-up contributions to the same HSA.
- Employer and individual mandates would be repealed by reducing penalties to zero.
- It preserves many ACA provisions such as the prohibition of lifetime limits and pre-existing condition exclusions, coverage for adult children up to age 26, guaranteed availability of coverage, nondiscrimination rules, and prohibition of health status underwriting.
- Federal subsidies would be replaced with tax credits.
- It will change how individual states can get waivers from certain provisions of the ACA.
- The Cadillac Tax would be delayed until 2026.
- The flexible spending account limit would be removed.
- It would repeal the ACA’s Medicaid expansion
- The Congressional Budget Office announced their “score” earlier today. They estimate that 22 million people could lose health coverage over 10 years, but Medicaid changes could cut deficits by $321 billion.
The next several days will likely be very interesting.
While we are waiting to see what comes next, here is the Schoolhouse Rock video so you can reminisce…
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