Overview of the ACA Replacement Plan

Overview of the Republican's Healthcare Proposal

On Monday, March 6, Republican leadership in the U.S. House of Representatives unveiled their plan describing their intended approach for replacing the ACA. This sets the stage for a debate on whether the Affordable Care Act should be dismantled. Watch this webinar replay for an overview of the key points of the replacement plan.

**Update - May 4, 2017. 

The House passed President Trump's healthcare bill to repeal Obamacare. This bill is not yet law. It must first go to the Senate where it will more than likely undergo some changes and be sent back to the house for approval before it reaches the President's desk.

The bill is similar to what we discussed in our March 22 webinar (replay below), with a few tweaks that were required to garner the votes needed for passage from moderate and conservative Republicans.

Here are the key provisions of the latest bill:

• Ends tax penalties, under the original Affordable Care Act, for individuals who don’t buy insurance coverage and larger employers who don’t offer coverage. Instead, insurers would apply a 30 percent surcharge to customers who've let coverage lapse for more than 63 days in the past year.
• Ends tax increases on higher-earning people and a range of industry groups including insurers, drug makers and medical device manufacturers.
• Cuts the Medicaid program for low-income people and lets states impose work requirements on Medicaid recipients. Forbids states that haven't already expanded Medicaid to do so. Changes Medicaid from an open-ended program that covers beneficiaries' costs to one that gives states fixed amounts of money annually.
• Overhauls insurance subsidy system from one based largely on incomes and premium costs to a system of tax credits. The credits would rise with customers’ ages and, like the subsidies, could be used toward premium costs.
• Lets states get federal waivers allowing insurers to charge older customers higher premiums than younger ones by as much as they'd like. Obama's law limits the difference to a 3-1 ratio. States also can get waivers exempting insurers from providing consumers with required coverage of specified health services, and from Obama's prohibition against insurers charging higher premiums to people with pre-existing health problems, but only if the person has had a gap in insurance coverage.
• States could only get the latter waivers if they have mechanisms like high-risk pools that are supposed to help cover people with serious, expensive-to-treat diseases. A newly added provision would give another $8 billion over five years to help states finance their high-risk pools. Despite criticism that the waivers strip protections, House Speaker Paul Ryan’s office maintains that since states that take the waivers would have to set up the high-risk pools, “insurance companies cannot deny you coverage based on pre-existing conditions.”
• Blocks federal payments to Planned Parenthood for a year.
• Retains requirement that family policies cover grown children to age 26.

Webinar Replay

Date: March 22, 2017
Duration: 34 minutes
Presenter: Luke Barnett, Connor & Gallagher OneSource