GOP Leadership Presents ‘Smorgasbord’ Of Repeal Options, But Few Concrete Details
House Speaker Paul Ryan met with rank-and-file Republicans to review a plan to dismantle and replace the health law on Thursday. Ryan told reporters leadership will introduce the legislation after the House's upcoming recess.
The New York Times:
House G.O.P. Leaders Outline Plan To Replace Obama Health Care Act
House Republican leaders on Thursday presented their rank-and-file members with the outlines of their plan to replace the Affordable Care Act, leaning heavily on tax credits to finance individual insurance purchases and sharply reducing federal payments to the 31 states that have expanded Medicaid eligibility. (Pear and Kaplan, 2/16)
The Associated Press:
GOP Leaders Unveil New Health Law Outline, Divisions Remain
At a closed-door meeting in the Capitol basement, House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., and other party leaders described a broad vision for voiding much of President Barack Obama's 2010 statute and replacing it with conservative policies. It features a revamped Medicaid program for the poor, tax breaks to help people pay doctors' bills and federally subsidized state pools to assist those with costly medical conditions in buying insurance. Lawmakers called the ideas options, and many were controversial. One being pushed by Ryan and other leaders would replace the tax increases in Obama's law with new levies on the value of some employer-provided health plans — a political no-fly zone for Republicans averse to tax boosts. (Fram, 2/16)
NPR:
GOP Health Care Would Cut Coverage For Low-Income Families
The outline plan is likely to take away some of the financial help low-income families get through Obamacare subsidies, and also result in fewer people being covered under the Medicaid health care program for the poor. "In general this is going to result in fewer people covered nationwide," says Caroline Pearson, a senior vice president at Avalere, a health care consulting group. (Kodjak, 2/16)
The Washington Post:
House GOP Discusses Obamacare Replacement Ideas — But Doesn’t Call Them A Plan
According to numerous lawmakers and aides in the room, as well as a policy memo distributed afterward, the House leaders laid out elements of a repeal-and-replace plan — including long-standing Republican concepts like health savings accounts, tax credits and state high-risk pools for the chronically sick. But they did not detail how those elements would fit together or get passed into law. “It’s sort of a smorgasbord right now,” said Rep. Daniel Webster (R-Fla.). (DeBonis and Snell, 2/16)
The Wall Street Journal:
GOP May Trim Tax Break For Employer-Backed Insurance
House Republicans, looking for ways to pay for their plan to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, are considering changing the special tax treatment for employer-provided health benefits. Capping how much of employees’ health benefits can be shielded from income and payroll taxes is one of the ways GOP lawmakers might offset the cost of their emerging health plan. (Peterson and Rubin, 2/17)
In other national health care news —
The New York Times:
Trump Health Pick Says Medicaid Needs A Major Overhaul
President Donald Trump's pick to run the government's major health insurance programs said Thursday that Medicaid needs a full overhaul but she doesn't support turning Medicare into a "voucher" plan. Indiana health care consultant Seema Verma testified before the Senate Finance Committee on her nomination to lead the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, or CMS. The $1 trillion agency oversees programs that cover about 1 out of 3 Americans. (2/16)
The Washington Post:
Medicaid Exposes Rifts Within The GOP Over The Program’s Future After The ACA
As congressional Republicans move from talking points to details of how to abolish the Affordable Care Act, behind-the-scenes jockeying over the future of Medicaid demonstrates the delicate trade-offs the GOP faces in trying to steer health policy in a more conservative direction. For years, many Republicans have railed against the ACA’s expansion of Medicaid, which has extended coverage to about 11 million people. But now that they have the political power to reverse those gains, internal disagreements have emerged. Some lawmakers want to preserve the federal money their states are getting under the expansion. Others argue that part of that money should be shifted to states that did not broaden their programs — or used for other purposes. (Eilperin, Goldstein and Snell, 2/16)
The Wall Street Journal:
U.S. Authorities Pressed China For Action On Deadly Opioid
China’s crackdown on an extremely potent synthetic narcotic came amid pressure from U.S. authorities and evidence linking it to hundreds of U.S. overdose deaths since it first emerged in Ohio in July. The drug, carfentanil, has been connected to at least 700 fatalities in states including Ohio, Michigan and Florida, according to data compiled by The Wall Street Journal from county medical examiners and NMS Labs, a private laboratory outside Philadelphia that performs toxicology testing for counties around the U.S. (Kamp and Campo-Flores, 2/17)