Senate Republicans released their secretly drafted health care bill on Thursday, June 22, finally giving the rest of their caucus and their political opponents the detailed text of what they hope will replace much of President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act.
The Senate’s Better Care Reconciliation Act has much in common with the version House Republican’s introduced but with some notable changes, including keeping “Obamacare’s” subsidies to help people pay for individual coverage.
The bill still ends the penalties that force individual American’s to buy insurance, thereby repealing the “Obamacare” individual mandate. It also cuts back federal support of Medicaid, eliminates “Obamacare” taxes on the wealthy, and ends the employer mandate requiring companies with 50 or more full-time employees to provide health insurance to their staff.
In introducing the bill, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Obamacare was not working, even if Democrats don’t want to face it.
“I regret that our Democratic friends made clear early on that they did not want to work with us in a serious bipartisan way to address the Obamacare status quo,” he said.
The bill aims to improve the affordability of health insurance, he said, while eliminating costly “Obamacare” taxes and shift more of the power in health care decisions to the states.
The bill would provide tax credits to help people buy insurance and let states get waivers to ignore some coverage standards that “Obamacare” requires of insurers.
The bill preserved access to care for patients with pre-existing conditions, strengthens Medicaid, and allows children to stay on their parents health insurance through the age of 26.
“I’m pleased that we were able to arrive at a draft that incorporates input from so many different members who represent so many different constituents, who are facing so many different challenges,” said McConnell.
But the move to replace much of Barack Obama’s health care law has significant hurdles ahead, and Senate Democrats are perhaps not the most difficult challenge. The bill needs the support of virtually all Republicans and many parts of it are contentious within the party.
McConnell hopes to push it through his chamber next week, but solid Democratic opposition, and complaints from at least a half-dozen Republicans, may make that impossible.
“We have to act,” McConnell said on the Senate floor. “Because ‘Obamacare’ is a direct attack on the middle class, and American families deserve better than its failing status quo.”
The Democrats said the bill is no better than the House bill that preceded it.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said that in some ways, it’s even worse.
“The president said the Senate bill needed heart, the way this bill cuts health care is heartless. The President said the House bill was mean, the Senate bill may be meaner.”
Schumer echoed a concern raised by some Republicans that there was not enough time to study the bill before the vote.
“No committee hearings, no amendments in committee, no debate on the floor, save for 10 measly hours, on one of the most important bills we’re dealing with in decades,” said Schumer.
President Trump has said the bill may still need some negotiations. Some Republicans are critical it leaves too much of Obamacare’s standing measures in tact.
The bill needs the support of all but two Republicans to pass the coming vote.
Matthew Little for Epoch Times
Matthew Little for NTD
