The Senate bill is also much like the House bill in that it would repeal most of the taxes associated with Obamacare (it would bump out the implementation of the so-called “Cadillac Tax” on expensive, employer-sponsored health care plans, from 2025 to 2026).
“To begin with, the draft Senate health care bill makes no change in the law protecting people with pre-existing conditions, no change in Medicare benefits, and increases Medicaid funding- that’s TennCare-at the rate of inflation”.
The draft Bill proposes repealing a 3.8 per cent net investment income tax on high earners retroactively to the start of 2017, not at some point in the future, as some analysts had speculated. Reports indicate it maintains rollbacks of the Medicaid expansion that extended eligibility and coverage for treatment and other health services to millions of low-income people. He also noted that the bill would help stabilize the insurance markets that are collapsing under Obamacare as well..
Meanwhile, protesters railed against the Senate healthcare bill during a sit-in outside of Mr McConnell’s office on Capitol Hill.
Sen. Maggie Hassan says Senate Republicans took a bill that President Donald Trump has called “mean” and made “it even more heartless”.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and his lieutenants worked in secret for weeks on the Bill, and he said debate on it would start next week.
“If the bill is good for Nevada, I’ll vote for it and if it’s not – I won’t”, Heller.
Minority Leader Chuck Schumer lashed out against the bill later on the floor, labeling it a tax break for wealthy Americans and warning against the cuts to Medicaid.
The bill faces broad opposition from Democrats. The budget office’s analysis of the Senate measure is expected in the next few days. The Senate bill would keep the House plan to send a fixed amount of money to states each year based on enrollment or as a lump sum block grant.
Collins could play a key role in the plan’s fate and has expressed concerns that the measure would cause many people to lose coverage.
Among the major differences between the Senate’s bill and the House’s is linking federal subsidies to income, as Obamacare does, rather than age.
The bill, dubbed the Better Care Reconciliation Act (BCRA), also strips federal funding of Planned Parenthood for one year. John Thune, R-S.D., a top McConnell deputy, referring to the number of senators needed to pass the bill, with Vice President Pence standing ready to cast a tiebreaking vote. There is no similar feature in the Senate draft, though aides said at a midday briefing that they were still exploring the possibility of adding such a provision. It does slash many Obamacare taxes, which would be nice on its own, but now that tax revenue will not be there to cover all those subsidies the Republicans are keeping in their plan! The heads of 10 managed care organizations penned a letter to McConnell and Schumer this week saying they were “united in our opposition to the Medicaid policies now being debated by the Senate”. That means they could flow to an estimated 2.6 million poor people in the 19 states that have not expanded their Medicaid programs – a group of Americans who until now have been caught without help.
One other big change this bill could make is creating a new system for who gets premium tax credits, and how big those premiums are. Other employer mandates would also be eliminated, as well as almost all of Obamacare’s taxes.