House Republicans have unveiled their long-anticipated plan to repeal the Affordable Care Act and replace it with a stripped-down system of individual tax credits.
The proposed legislation would preserve some of the most popular features of the controversial health-reform law sometimes called Obamacare, while eliminating some aspects that never caught on with the public.
Here are some of the changes:
-Young adults could still stay on their parents’ health plans until age 26, and insurers still could not deny coverage or charge more to people with pre-existing conditions.
-The proposed legislation would eliminate two of the Affordable Care Act’s most contentious provisions — the employer mandate and the individual mandate. Companies would no longer face penalties for failing to offer workers a health plan, and people would no longer face a penalty for not being insured.
-The Republican plan would penalize those who allow their coverage to slip. Insurance companies would be allowed to charge an additional 30 percent to anyone who has a lapse in their coverage.
-Insurance companies also would be allowed to charge older customers more for coverage. The Affordable Care Act (ACA) required that insurers charge their oldest customers no more than three times the prices charged to the youngest, but the proposed GOP legislation would allow them to charge five times as much.
-The ACA’s complex system of income-based subsidies to help pay insurance premiums and cover out-of-pocket expenses would be replaced by a simpler system of refundable tax credits for the purchase of state-approved health insurance.
-The new tax credits would be based on age, rather than income. People under age 30 would get a $2,000 annual tax credit to buy health coverage, with the credits increasing to a maximum of $4,000 for people over 60. A family would receive a maximum $14,000 in tax credits each year.
-The tax credits would be available in full to people earning less than $75,000 and households earning less than $150,000 but would be reduced for those who earn more.
Big changes to Medicaid funding proposed
-It repeals a tax on medical devices and prescription medications and delays the “Cadillac Tax” on high-cost employer health plans until 2025.
-Medicaid — the government-run program for the poor — would be converted to a state-based block-grant program, with federal funding capped per enrollee and based on how much each state spent on Medicaid in the fiscal year 2016.
-The 31 states that chose to expand Medicaid would continue to get additional federal funding until 2020. However, funding would be reduced for anyone who tries to enter the program after 2020, or those who leave the program and then come back.
-For the 19 states that balked at expanding Medicaid, the bill would provide $10 billion over five years to help extend coverage to the poor.
-The House Republican proposal also would cut federal funding to Planned Parenthood. The women’s health organization would no longer be eligible for Medicaid payments or federal family planning grants.