After significant internal division about the path forward on Obamacare, lawmakers unveiled two bills that, taken together, would repeal and replace President Obama’s signature health care reform law. House committees are expected to hold votes on the bills as early as this week.
Here’s what you need to know about the legislation, and what it says about the House GOP’s plan for the future of health insurance in America:
It includes massive cuts to Medicaid, the program that provides coverage for millions of low-income Americans.
The proposed replacement bill includes big cuts to Medicaid, the government program that provides coverage for low-income Americans.
It would phase out the Medicaid expansion under Obamacare, which extended coverage to more than 11 million low-income people, beginning in 2020. It would also restructure the way the entire program is funded — offering states a lump sum to administer Medicaid coverage rather than providing however much funding states need to cover the pool of Medicaid eligible residents — putting the future of Medicaid in jeopardy.
It defunds Planned Parenthood and eliminates abortion coverage.
The GOP’s replacement proposal includes two major provisions aimed at eroding access to reproductive health care.
One would bar Planned Parenthood from using federal funding toward its family planning services, which would prevent the women’s health organization from providing birth control and mammograms to 2.5 million current patients who are covered through Medicaid. The other would prevent Americans from using their tax credits to help pay for plans that include coverage for elective abortion services — essentially, singling out abortion care as a service that won’t be covered like other medical procedures and forcing low-income people to bear the full out-of-pocket cost of ending a pregnancy.
It includes a big tax break for insurance companies that pay their CEOs more than $500,000 per year.
One provision in the House GOP’s proposed Obamacare replacement plan would essentially incentivize major corporations to overpay their top executives — offering a tax break to insurers that pay CEOs more than half a million dollars per year.
A significant portion of the bill is devoted to ensuring lottery winners don’t have access to Medicaid.
One of the most bizarre inclusions in the legislation is a provision that would prevent lottery winners from being able to remain covered by the Medicaid program. The 66-page document spends seven of those pagesdetailing this policy change.