The Republican Study Committee ’s ACA Replacement Proposal

The 115th Congress convened on January 3 and as already reported one of their first orders of business was to begin the process of repealing parts of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) through the budget reconciliation process. A big question left unanswered, however, is what would replace the ACA?
On January 4, 2017, the House Republican Study Committee, a caucus of conservative Republican House members, introduced the American Health Care Reform Act (AHCRA), their replacement proposal.
This is only one of several Republican replacement proposals. It is similar to proposals made by the Study Committee in 2013 and 2015, which have been analyzed elsewhere. I will, therefore, only describe it in brief.
The proposal would:
Repeal the ACA entirely, effective January 1, 2018
This would not just repeal the ACA’s Title I insurance reforms and affordability provisions and the Title II Medicaid expansions and improvements, but would also repeal provisions closing the Medicare doughnut hole and expanding Medicare coverage and titles dealing with health care quality, prevention of chronic disease, fraud and abuse, scholarships and grants to expand the medical workforce, and approval of generic biologics. It would further repeal the ACA’s taxes, including taxes on people making more than $200,000 a year amounting to $346 billion over 10 years.
Replace the ACA’s means-tested premium tax credits and the current tax exclusion for employer-sponsored coverage
The proposal would instead insti...

Source: Health Affairs Blog - January 5, 2017 Category: Health Management Authors: Timothy Jost Tags: Following the ACA Insurance and Coverage ACA repeal and replace open enrollment Source Type: blogs