* This fight isn’t over yet, though.
Senate Republicans again failed to approve legislation to
repeal major parts of the Affordable Care Act on Wednesday.
This time, it was a bill that would have eliminated funding for
the Affordable Care Act’s private health insurance subsidies and
Medicaid expansion, its individual mandate that most Americans
obtain health coverage or face tax penalties, its mandate that
large companies offer health benefits to full-time employees, and
its taxes on rich people and health care companies. This
legislation didn’t include any means of replacing the Affordable
Care Act.
The measure, known as as the Obamacare
Repeal Reconciliation Act, failed 45-55, with seven
Republican senators voting against it, along with all Democrats and
independents in the upper chamber. GOP Sens. Lamar Alexander (Tenn.), Susan Collins (Maine), Dean Heller (Nev.), John McCain (Ariz.), Shelley Moore Capito (W. Va.), Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) and Rob Portman (Ohio) opposed the legislation.
The path forward for Senate Majority Leader Mitch
McConnell (R-Ky.) isn’t clear, but the defeat of
another bill doesn’t mean the Affordable Care Act is safe.
The Senate will continue debating health care throughout the
week, with a slew of additional
votes coming, many of which are expected to occur
between Thursday evening and into the wee hours of Friday morning.
Republican senators at this point appear
increasingly content to pass
essentially anything, regardless of its policy content
and its consequences for the health care system.
The Obamacare Repeal Reconciliation Act would have increased the
number of Americans without health coverage by 32
million over the next 10 years, according to the
Congressional Budget Office, including 17 million people who would
have become uninsured next year alone.
The bill also would’ve upended the health insurance market by
eliminating the individual mandate, which encourages healthy people
to buy insurance, but would have left in place rules guaranteeing
access to coverage for people with pre-existing conditions and
promising a rich set of insurance benefits.
As a result, fewer healthy people would have enrolled, and those
who remained in the market would have generally been sicker and
more expensive to care for, which would have driven up premiums
over time. In addition, the absence of financial assistance for
private insurance would have kept away low-income customers, both
healthy and sick.
On Tuesday, the Senate voted to begin
debate on health care legislation by the barest of
margins: Vice President Mike Pence had
to cast a tie-breaking vote in his constitutional role as president
of the Senate after GOP Sens. Susan
Collins (Maine) and Lisa
Murkowski(Alaska) voted against the motion to proceed to
the bills, joining all 46 Democrats and both independents in the
Senate.
But too few Republicans backed the first two
vehicles for Obamacare repeal for the measures to move forward.
The Senate rejected
the Better Care
Reconciliation Act, previously the leading contender to
repeal and “replace” the Affordable Care Act, 43-57 on
Tuesday evening, with nine
Republicans voting to oppose it alongside all the
minority senators.
That bill would have increased the number of uninsured Americans
by 22 million over a
decade and disrupted the insurance market,
especially for older, poorer and sicker people, the Congressional
Budget Office concluded.
The bill that failed Wednesday, unlike the Better Care
Reconciliation Act, didn’t include any language to actually replace
the Affordable Care Act.
In addition, it didn’t actually repeal the entire law. Largely
because of the restrictions of the budget reconciliation process,
which McConnell is employing for the Obamacare repeal effort, the legislation
couldn’t undo significant elements of the health care law, such as
its regulations on health insurance policies.
The budget reconciliation process enables McConnell to win final
passage of legislation with a simple majority because budget
reconciliation bills aren’t subject to filibusters. But it also
limits legislation to matters directly affecting the federal
budget, which doesn’t include things like creating new programs or
changing regulations.
Congress passed a version of this same bill in
2015, and President Barack Obama vetoed it.
Six Republican senators who voted for that measure two
years ago opposed it this time: Alexander, Capito, Heller, McCain,
Murkowski and Portman. Collins and then-Sen. Mark Kirk (Ill.) were the only Republicans who
opposed the 2015 legislation.
After this latest unsuccessful vote, the most likely scenario,
for now, is that McConnell presents the Senate with a new, so-called
“skinny” bill ― written on the
fly ― that would merely repeal the Affordable Care
Act’s individual and employer mandates, along with its tax on
medical device sales.
The Congressional Budget Office analyzed the effects of repealing only the
individual mandate in a 2015 report, and found it would destabilize
the health insurance market, leading to 15 million fewer people
with coverage and 20 percent health insurance premium increases.
The budget agency didn’t project the effects of eliminating the
employer mandate and the medical device tax in that report.
If McConnell chooses this option, it would force Republicans in
the Senate and the House, which passed its own version of
repeal-and-replace legislation in May, to negotiate
still another health care bill that leaders would ask their members
to support. President Donald
Trump has been clear that he will sign whatever
health care bill Congress sends
him.
huffingtonpost.com
* This fight isn’t over yet, though.
Senate Republicans again failed to approve legislation to
repeal major parts of the Affordable Care Act on Wednesday.
This time, it was a bill that would have eliminated funding for
the Affordable Care Act’s private health insurance subsidies and
Medicaid expansion, its individual mandate that most Americans
obtain health coverage or face tax penalties, its mandate that
large companies offer health benefits to full-time employees, and
its taxes on rich people and health care companies. This
legislation didn’t include any means of replacing the Affordable
Care Act.
The measure, known as as the Obamacare
Repeal Reconciliation Act, failed 45-55, with seven
Republican senators voting against it, along with all Democrats and
independents in the upper chamber. GOP Sens. Lamar Alexander (Tenn.), Susan Collins (Maine), Dean Heller (Nev.), John McCain (Ariz.), Shelley Moore Capito (W. Va.), Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) and Rob Portman (Ohio) opposed the legislation.
The path forward for Senate Majority Leader Mitch
McConnell (R-Ky.) isn’t clear, but the defeat of
another bill doesn’t mean the Affordable Care Act is safe.
The Senate will continue debating health care throughout the
week, with a slew of additional
votes coming, many of which are expected to occur
between Thursday evening and into the wee hours of Friday morning.
Republican senators at this point appear
increasingly content to pass
essentially anything, regardless of its policy content
and its consequences for the health care system.
The Obamacare Repeal Reconciliation Act would have increased the
number of Americans without health coverage by 32
million over the next 10 years, according to the
Congressional Budget Office, including 17 million people who would
have become uninsured next year alone.
The bill also would’ve upended the health insurance market by
eliminating the individual mandate, which encourages healthy people
to buy insurance, but would have left in place rules guaranteeing
access to coverage for people with pre-existing conditions and
promising a rich set of insurance benefits.
As a result, fewer healthy people would have enrolled, and those
who remained in the market would have generally been sicker and
more expensive to care for, which would have driven up premiums
over time. In addition, the absence of financial assistance for
private insurance would have kept away low-income customers, both
healthy and sick.
On Tuesday, the Senate voted to begin
debate on health care legislation by the barest of
margins: Vice President Mike Pence had
to cast a tie-breaking vote in his constitutional role as president
of the Senate after GOP Sens. Susan
Collins (Maine) and Lisa
Murkowski(Alaska) voted against the motion to proceed to
the bills, joining all 46 Democrats and both independents in the
Senate.
But too few Republicans backed the first two
vehicles for Obamacare repeal for the measures to move forward.
The Senate rejected
the Better Care
Reconciliation Act, previously the leading contender to
repeal and “replace” the Affordable Care Act, 43-57 on
Tuesday evening, with nine
Republicans voting to oppose it alongside all the
minority senators.
That bill would have increased the number of uninsured Americans
by 22 million over a
decade and disrupted the insurance market,
especially for older, poorer and sicker people, the Congressional
Budget Office concluded.
The bill that failed Wednesday, unlike the Better Care
Reconciliation Act, didn’t include any language to actually replace
the Affordable Care Act.
In addition, it didn’t actually repeal the entire law. Largely
because of the restrictions of the budget reconciliation process,
which McConnell is employing for the Obamacare repeal effort, the legislation
couldn’t undo significant elements of the health care law, such as
its regulations on health insurance policies.
The budget reconciliation process enables McConnell to win final
passage of legislation with a simple majority because budget
reconciliation bills aren’t subject to filibusters. But it also
limits legislation to matters directly affecting the federal
budget, which doesn’t include things like creating new programs or
changing regulations.
Congress passed a version of this same bill in
2015, and President Barack Obama vetoed it.
Six Republican senators who voted for that measure two
years ago opposed it this time: Alexander, Capito, Heller, McCain,
Murkowski and Portman. Collins and then-Sen. Mark Kirk (Ill.) were the only Republicans who
opposed the 2015 legislation.
After this latest unsuccessful vote, the most likely scenario,
for now, is that McConnell presents the Senate with a new, so-called
“skinny” bill ― written on the
fly ― that would merely repeal the Affordable Care
Act’s individual and employer mandates, along with its tax on
medical device sales.
The Congressional Budget Office analyzed the effects of repealing only the
individual mandate in a 2015 report, and found it would destabilize
the health insurance market, leading to 15 million fewer people
with coverage and 20 percent health insurance premium increases.
The budget agency didn’t project the effects of eliminating the
employer mandate and the medical device tax in that report.
If McConnell chooses this option, it would force Republicans in
the Senate and the House, which passed its own version of
repeal-and-replace legislation in May, to negotiate
still another health care bill that leaders would ask their members
to support. President Donald
Trump has been clear that he will sign whatever
health care bill Congress sends
him.
huffingtonpost.com
Read more https://nairalaw.com/just-in-another-obamacare-repeal-bill-just-failed-in-the-senate/